


Pray That There's Intelligent Life Somewhere Up In Space

by kyanve



Series: When We Were Young And Indestructible [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blaytz is briefly present, Coran centered, Dumb college shenanigans, Except Trigel she’s less dumb, Gen, It also feels wrong using the Haggar tag for younger Honerva., Pre-EVERYTHING, Save Her, So is Gyrgan on a technicality but he's in the background, platonic partners in crime, younger Coran and Alfor are train wrecks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-03-28 01:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyanve/pseuds/kyanve
Summary: For the Coran Big Bang, with art by lunar--cat1364!When Coran gets a chance to continue his studies off Altea, away from the weight of expectations and his family's position, he jumps at the chance to get as far as he can and spend a while pretending none of it exists.Unfortunately, so did the young crown prince.Fortunately, Alfor is just as intent on trying to forget he has obligations as Coran is.Them getting arranged as roommates works great for "getting them to get along", but backfires spectacularly at "getting them to stay out of trouble".





	1. Don't Want To Measure Out My Life To The Tick Of A Clock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coran's arrival on campus leads to pondering murder on his relatives for pulling strings to stick him with the prince - 
> 
> Even if they should've thought harder about how cooperative Alfor would be, himself.

**Journal: 01-13-3014.34**  
_In spite of the universe being determined to make the trip out as miserable as possible, I am still looking forward to getting away from Altaea and all of the restrictions and imposed expectations for a while. “Exposure to other cultures” and “a chance to learn from them” is all well and good, but being away from five hundred demands on my time and schedule and presentation and all that talk of following in family footsteps and Great Responsibilities I Should At Least Attempt And Be Happy To Have?_

_Thank the Ancestors._

_Of course nothing can go well. Sure, it was my decision to take the opportunity to go via normal passenger transport rather than one of the more official ships with a teludav, and I most certainly do not regret getting away a quintent or so sooner, but._

_Well first there were two merchant ships and another passenger ship attacked near one relay point so we had to reroute._

_And then there was a supernova that was spiking radiation so we had to reroute again._

_I’ve been on transports, couches in transit stations, and running between points trying to keep up with changes in where I’m supposed to be in the damned mazes they call transit stations for almost a full quintent now, and we’re scheduled to arrive fifteen vargas late._

_So I’m going to get there just ahead of the official ship anyway._

_When I get to my room on campus I am going to put my things down and not move._

The outpost was a larger station in a hazy area of space where exact ownership was debatable; after a few fights over ownership rights for the system it was in, the invested parties had finally settled on a treaty declaring it jointly held neutral space. It held a solid orbit around a not-incredibly-habitable low resource ball of rock that had a few mining colonies on it, stubborn groups from different races and worlds that had gone prospecting and were intent on making something of a bad investment by digging out whatever was vaguely usable under their claim. The star was at least at a decently comfortable range, once filtered through enough solar shields and blunted down by the systems that powered the station off its radiation. 

The station had started out small, a simple observation post, and then been gradually expanded, each new stage built around the old one like a manic nest of new material stuck onto an outgrown husk. 

The joint campus was its own entity with its own boundaries and security in one of the outer rings, more recently established, and the dorm windows didn’t have much of a view that would give any sense of passage of time. 

Coran still had a good guess that he must’ve passed out longer than he’d expected, judging by the way he could feel the bedding fabric imprinted on his face when he started slowly fumbling towards a semblance of being awake. 

The next thing he noticed was music turned down low volume that was an uncannily targeted strike at inspiring mixed feelings. He hadn’t known there were versions of off-color saccharine pop music done with proper traditional instruments, and he wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or trying to ban it from existence.

It had him planning ahead for explanations why he tried to murder his roommate before he’d even tried moving or opening his eyes, even if it wasn’t as bad as half of the things that’d come to mind as possible problems when he found out he couldn’t get out of a shared-room situation on just “I want to be left alone”. 

Flat exhausted unconsciousness wasn’t a way to get good sleep, and everything was stiff and uncomfortable when he did start making a few feeble tests at sitting up. He sat up with a quiet groan, still bleary eyed and with every joint and muscle protesting stiffly.

“You alright over there?”

He turned to squint at his roommate.

An entire campus with only a small number of Altean students, and he’d managed to get stuck with another Altean. Worse, he knew what the other teenager’s white hair meant - enough inherent power to leach the color out of it.

Upper nobility or royalty, which meant someone who’d know what family he was from if they ever heard his full name, and no chance of getting away from his whole Destiny problem, even in neutral territory a ridiculous distance away from Altea. 

“I’ll live,” he grumbled.

On the bright side, the other teenager hadn’t looked up from something in his hands - a small piece of alloyed ceramic he was working on with an etching tool. Coran couldn’t quite make out what he was doing exactly, but he seemed engrossed in it. 

“You must’ve been exhausted, to just pass out like that. Rough trip?” Amiable enough so far, but he’d seen enough to know that pleasantries were always part of the dance. 

“You have no idea.” He left it at that, rolling his eyes and stretching to work the kinks.

“The commons is going to close in a Varga, he’s awake now so there’s no reason to keep putting it off, and I don’t think either of _you_ can run off the power grid.” 

Coran almost jumped at the other voice, indeterminate in gender but not artificial sounding, before he placed it as coming from a small aerial drone sitting on a dock station on a shelf over his roommate’s bed. 

“It’s that late already?” His roommate was talking to the AI drone like anyone else, and the AI made a derisive noise of frustration at him.

Simple AI voice assistant programs were common. Ones with enough personality to sass at their owners off the cuff were rare and difficult to pull off without a whole host of legal and ethical complications.

“Is… that a self-aware AI?”

His new roommate froze, smile turning the kind of nervous that raised flags. “Er. Could you not let anybody know? The rules out here are very restrictive but I couldn’t just leave her at home, so I didn’t actually report her as such on my paperwork…”

Coran blinked, raised an eyebrow, and looked up at the little drone, which had gone quiet. He might not be thrilled to be stuck with some unknown noble, but he could certainly get behind disobedience of rules like that, and smuggling sapient artificial life under the radar of rules that would’ve meant a lot of poor treatment was definitely on that list.

“… what AI? I don’t know of any sapient AI here.”

The young noble relaxed, tension draining as he sank back against the couple pillows he’d propped up while he was working. “Thank you.”

“I appreciate it too, but if you two are going to get anything to eat, you need to get moving.” 

He was getting the impression the little AI drone was used to this.

Coran honestly would’ve been happy to just stay put in the room until he felt less like protesting existing, but he certainly didn’t have any clue where else to get food besides the central commons yet - he wasn’t even sure where that was, after landing and heading straight to the dorms to fall over. His roommate gave whatever project he’d been working on one last, forlorn look before putting it and the tools on the shelf next to the drone’s dock, holding a hand up by it.

A small part of the front of the drone with a set of lenses detached, running down his arm on thin, jointed legs to half-hide next to his shirt collar. The basic chassis of the drone was a variation on a normal model, but that was definitely not something they were normally designed to do, and Coran stopped sitting on the edge of his bed, already running over in his head the kind of alterations that would need to be made to internal circuits and components for it to have a smaller independent module that still integrated seamlessly with the rest of the body without it being visible if anyone looked at it too closely. 

“It’s not always a good idea to have something hovering behind you, and for a place like this, the normal drone is still a little big and attention-getting.” 

“Where did you get her?” Coran nodded toward the little drone on his shoulder; that was more than altering programming to build a self-aware system, that was a great deal of custom work.

“Well, Tila herself is a few years old - I rebuilt a burned out drone to add a hybrid AI system with a crystalline core, and that’s how she ended up here.” So a much heavier magitech basis than normal for those drones, and something that wasn’t normally used for basic drones and smaller machines exactly because it meant enough of a complicated energy structure attached to the machinery that it was hard to avoid it being alive enough for ethics concerns. “The rest of the alterations I’ve been working on off and on since.”

At least he’d been stuck with someone that might be able to follow enough of his work to carry on a conversation. 

He thought maybe his roommate might’ve known which way they were going, considering that the other Altean had arrived more awake and functional than he had, but after they got out of the dorm, the little drone was quietly giving directions, with a lot less editorial commentary and snark than she used in private - toning down her behavior enough to draw less suspicion that she wasn’t a normal “dumb” AI. 

The campus didn’t seem to have been built with any consensus on whether it should look mostly like the inside of a smaller station or try to look like a normal planetside facility, structures that were built largely with space constraints in mind and honeycombed enclosed walkways and catwalks clustered around courtyard areas with artificial full-spectrum lights and a mish-mash of different things that could be loosely categorized as plants in containers in an attempt at breaking up the artificial lines. They had a pause in one of the courtyards just outside the dorm complex, as Tila was quietly processing bearings and which buildings and paths were open.

“ - I think I missed your name! I’m Alfor.” 

The young noble had a hand held out that Coran cautiously accepted, and then froze as the name sank in. It wasn’t a full name by any long shot, but there was no way it was possible that he’d ended up finding some _other_ Altean noble about his age who just happened to have the same first name as the crown prince, and no way it was an accident that, on a campus with close to 30,000 people on it, he’d ended up sharing a room with the _Prince of Altea._

An entire term he’d been looking forward to as a chance to get _away_ from inherited responsibilities and Grand Positions he hadn’t asked for, and they’d pulled strings to stick him with the last person he wanted to be anywhere near for this term. 

“I’m going to kill them,” he muttered under his breath, getting a confused look from Alfor. “You’re the crown prince.”

Alfor winced, glancing around fast and nervously to make sure there wasn’t anybody else in earshot. 

“Could you - not draw attention? This is the first time I’ve been _anywhere_ where I didn’t have people hovering constantly and reminders all the time of what I ‘should’ be acting like or how I ‘should’ be carrying myself, and the constant gossip -“ Alfor paused; there wasn’t any of the angry sullen stubbornness Coran had been adopting, digging in heels against it, but there was still something very familiar in the story and the sudden harried expression slipping through. “I know I can’t avoid all of it but I’d like to not have to think about it _all_ the time.”

Alfor was looking at him like a yelmor pup that was expecting to get kicked, and Coran couldn’t manage to be mad at Alfor himself over this - Alfor probably hadn’t had any more say or idea than he had. 

He was still going to wish murder on his grandfather and everyone else involved in this. 

But, maybe he could live with the situation somewhat. “Coran,” he stated simply; just because the prince was as eager to get away from everything as he was didn’t mean he trusted the situation enough to give his full name and deal with sharing space with someone who’d know what he was being set up for.

Besides, there was that entire looming specter where, if Alfor made it to coronation and was accepted, this was one of the people Coran was going to be expected to follow behind for the _rest of his life_ and he was still firmly committed to any direction but _that_ one. He might be able to deal with Alfor as a person for the study term, but he was not a servant. 

*************************

**Journal: 01-15-3014.34**

_After all of that hurry to get here, It’s been two quintents and there’s one more still before anything actually starts. There’s all of these supervised social events to ‘get everyone used to interacting with different species and cultures’ and ‘orientation’, but everything actually useful is on the campus network, so there’s not much point to any of it. Alfor’s been going, but I don’t think he’s paying that much attention - when he gets back to the room most of what he came away with was food._

_He’s also been rambling about everyone else on campus - turns out, he’s almost obnoxiously social. The way he darts off being curious about everybody else here, I’m not sure if he’s trying to get away from getting set up for his position or embracing it._

_…Well, partly embracing it. Some of his chatter sounds like he’s interested in entirely the wrong definition of ‘diplomacy’._

_Every time he’s gone out he’s been asking if I want to go; you’d think he’d have learned by now, but at least he doesn’t push it. I mean, he looks vaguely sad for a minute and I swear I’d rather he were nagging or going on some kind of ‘you should get out more and meet people’ tangent, but then he just shrugs and flounces off._

_Oh and last night he snuck back in well after the lights-out call when we’re all supposed to be in our rooms. I’m not sure I want to ask why, not after he got distracted at dinner hanging entirely too close to some girl (I think?) of some species I didn’t even recognize._

_It’s now just after lights-out, and there’s no sign of him tonight, either._

They hadn’t invested in the dorms enough for the walls to have solid soundproofing. It had made for a lot of fiddling trying to strike a balance between having his music loud enough to drown out any disturbances outside, but not loud enough to get complaints from the rooms on either side of them. One of their neighbors towered over Coran, with heavy scales and claws as long as each of his fingers, and yet the risk of disciplinary action that might impact access to labs and coursework was a bigger threat and a bigger motivation to try to get along. 

He’d resigned himself to enough self-defense training that he was pretty sure he could take the big lizard if there was violence. 

The door slid open fast and then closed just as fast, Alfor mashing the manual override to shut it, frozen with his back to the door for a good count of three or four ticks before he relaxed, letting out a relieved breath. He had some kind of container tucked under one arm. Coran stared at him oddly, one eyebrow raised, and between only having one hand to gesture with and the music being just loud enough, the initial explanation was almost complete gibberish.

Or at least, the first half-sentence of explanation was lost; Alfor gave up, and made some hurried miming gestures at the hallway and at Tila’s larger drone shell.

So there were camera drones that patrolled the halls at night, and he was dodging them. 

Coran sighed, tapping a control on his wrist computer to shut the music off. 

“Any particular reason you’ve been dodging curfew?”

Alfor flattened a little more against the door, glancing away nervously. “I lost track of time?”

Coran raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“No really - I was out exploring the campus, and I got to talking with a couple of Olkari and lost track of time, then I found a couple places just off-campus and didn’t realize how late it’d gotten until I got back.” He held out the container. “I brought you this?” 

A small shape nudged out from under his collar. “I told him when it was getting close to curfew. He played a-few-more-ticks and then nobody-will-notice after it passed.” 

Alfor was still holding out the container to Coran, but sank into a sullen sulk, staring at the far wall.  
“Well. Nobody _did_ notice,” he added in a grumble after a pause.

“Only because you spend so much time sneaking into and out of things that your second calling in life would be espionage if you could plan ahead longer than three doboshes.” 

Coran’s eyebrow was still raised as he stared at them, trying to decide what to make of the both of them. It definitely wasn’t what he’d been expecting of the Crown Prince of Altea. He finally decided to cautiously sit up and slide off the bed to take the container from Alfor, who wasn’t moving after losing a verbal fencing match with his own AI assistant. 

After he’d taken it, Alfor slunk to his own bed, Tila climbing off his shoulder up to the shelf to re-attach to the larger drone. 

It was definitely food, if unfamiliar food; some kind of pale hard shells oblong that were probably based off some kind of grain that looked like there was filling in them, still warm. 

“There’s a few places off campus I found while I was out, so I thought I’d bring something back so you weren’t stuck living off just the central commons.” The sulk after the AI’s small betrayal was already fading. “It’s Olkari - one of their local vegetables with a seed flour shell.” 

Coran stared down at the one in his hand, blinking, unsure how to parse this. “Thanks?” He looked up and over; Alfor was in one of his still pauses, close to drowsing. “Have you gotten your schedule together even?” 

“Earlier in the day with the offices.” Alfor waved a hand. “Mine’s all over the place, between the technical classes and politics and history…I’m going to need every shortcut I can find when everything starts.” 

“So they’re sticking you with all of that already?” Coran had gotten the impression Alfor was trying to avoid his own rank out here; getting piled with extra work to prepare for it can’t have sat well.

Alfor made a quiet noise. “It’s not completely awful. The history and cultural studies are actually interesting, and I at least managed to weight more around alchemy and engineering. Can’t do much about political and military study, though.” 

Coran was sympathetic and yet also had a funny sense of dread; the King normally was most responsible for external diplomacy and military leadership - which meant that if Alfor passed the Ordeal for coronation, ‘politics and military’ would be exactly what he’d be in charge of. 

Well, it wasn’t like he wanted to be here, either. He curled up with the roll, trying to decide what he thought of the odd sharp spices the Olkari used. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was strange. “I didn’t think royalty went for straight engineering.” Alchemy and metaphysics studies, sure, the various royal and noble lines had enough magic potential that it was stupid for them not to learn to use or control it, but Coran had run into more than a few young and not-so-young Alteans with that inherent power who took it as a point of pride to rely more on their own abilities. 

“I know, it always seemed stupid to me. You get so much better of an understanding of how things work when you take up the rest of the sciences, and what you make actually _lasts_ and is useful to so much more than just you and whoever’s immediately around you - anybody with power can do something with what’s right in front of them, but if you can build something permanent, then you’ve made something solid that can actually make a lasting difference!” Alfor had sat up as he was speaking, hands moving animatedly, and he trailed off at the end, suddenly self-conscious and still.

He was definitely expecting some kind of reaction from Coran, but Coran wasn’t sure what it was, and just blinked and tilted his head a little.

“Sorry, I guess I’ve had that argument a few too many times. You know, everything else I’m supposed to be responsible for and I’m ‘wasting my time’ on engineering and research that ‘anyone else could do’...” Alfor ducked his head, fussing with his tied-back hair with one hand.

At least his grandfather encouraged his own interest in mechanical work, even if that sometimes frustrated Coran since it was always equated with ‘useful for his eventual job serving the crown’. “And what you want doesn’t matter, of course.” 

Alfor sighed, flopping back on the pillows with his hands folded over his stomach. “Well, Father and Mother’ve been humoring it, although I hear plenty about how I should be paying more attention to preparing to lead, too. Everyone else considers me an embarrassment, between that and ‘being flippant about everything’.” He paused, rolling his eyes. “Well, _one_ of my cousins thinks the technical study is perfectly practical, but Jalis is an ass most of the rest of the time.” 

“The King’s allowing it?” Coran raised an eyebrow. He’d only had a few passing encounters with the man, and those were usually from the background of his grandfather’s affairs, but he’d always struck Coran as an incredibly severe and slightly terrifying individual. “You mean he’s not secretly some kind of robot on strict programming?”

Alfor doubled in on himself with a bout of hysterical laughter that almost turned into choking; he was wheezing and on the verge of more when he managed to get enough air to say anything. “Ancestors, he _could_ be.”

Coran edged over, pushing the empty food container aside to lean on his elbow over the edge with a sly smirk. “You should check next time you’re in the same place. You know, just to be sure.” 

“Easier said than done, you know. He could just have organic bits to make it more convincing. Cultured tissue over a mechanical frame.” Alfor was actually grinning, the brief pensive mood of a minute ago forgotten. 

“Well, that’s what Tila’s around for, right, Tila?” Coran wasn’t actually sure if the AI was still paying attention, but it was worth a shot. 

The drone was resting on the cradle above the bed, but there was a flicker of a few lights coming back on. “Already checked. Biosignature scans normal. Besides, he can’t be a robot - we’re less grouchy.” 

Alfor mock-pouted. “Are you sure we’re related?” 

There was a dubious pause with a couple flickering lights. “...I dunno, from what I’ve heard of some of your great-grandparents, maybe it just skipped a couple generations.”

Alfor leaned back with a considering nod, more at ease, at least. 

Coran raised an eyebrow. “You mean the royalty isn’t always like him?” 

“Are you kidding?” Alfor looked over, and began ticking off on his fingers. “The King six generations back made first contact with three different previously unknown civilizations after insisting he could manage a Teludav jump drunk, one of the royal family four generations back won back a stolen holy relic in a drinking game with the pirates that stole it, and my great-great-grandfather accidentally ended up married into three different Davdabhau clans while trying to salvage a diplomatic incident.” The way he paused, Coran suspected that he could’ve kept going, but he shrugged and folded his hands behind his head, sprawled across the bed. “Honestly those stories are all that keeps me from running away to be a space pirate or something some days.” 

“...You know, I tuned out most of the history lectures, but I feel like the versions I was told were …” Coran had to search to find words; what he remembered when he _had_ listened had been incredibly banal, formal, and stuffy. “Different.” 

“You mean you heard the versions that got cleaned up to sound more like what would be expected of ‘proper royalty’.” Alfor didn’t sound surprised at least. “Not all of the histories tried to clean things up, and the firsthand logs are all archived around the palace.” 

He’d never actually checked if he’d have access to those; he’d never been interested before. “Go figure. Couldn’t possibly say anything that’d allow a speck of personality to any of it.”

He’d been dodging telling Alfor which family he was from, even though Alfor had given him thoughtfully suspicious looks every time he redirected away from his family, why he was upset to’ve been stuck with Alfor, or anything to do with where he was from. So far, they had only been brief, and Alfor had been visibly accepting that he didn’t want to talk about it without more than raised eyebrows. He didn’t think Alfor bought his ‘bad experiences with royalty’ explanation.

And Alfor was giving him another of Those Looks. “You wouldn’t happen to be familiar with the Castle, would you.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Coran moved back to the far side of his bed, as close to the wall as he could wedge, and crossed his arms sullenly.

“Well, you know, if you were, that would explain why you were grumbling about killing people like you were sure us being roommates was a setup.” Alfor was staring at the ceiling, in the worst attempt at feigned ignorance and innocence Coran had ever seen. “And it would, hypothetically, mean our families had shoved us together to keep an eye on each other, or make us get along, or something.” 

Which was exactly the problem with the whole thing, really. Admitting who he was _and_ getting along with Alfor would be letting them win, and his Grandfather would never let him hear the end of it. 

“But I think if you were, it would be one of the most horrendously _stupid_ things for them to do, because they have no way of enforcing what we’re ‘supposed’ to be doing, _especially_ if we’re covering for each other out here.” Alfor finally looked away from the ceiling, dropping the feigned innocence with the start of a conspiratorial smile.

Coran squinted at him sideways. “No obligations to anything?”

“Coran. Please. I pushed for the furthest possible place to study off Altea to get _away_ from them myself.”

Which was exactly Coran’s reasoning for arguing for the far-flung neutral station. Their families had probably meant for him and Alfor to keep an eye on each other - but if both of them were cooperating to throw that off…

“I think we have a deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coran's arrival on campus is basically how my own arrival at college happened, complete with passing out in the room to wake up later to my roommate having arrived and gotten unpacked while I was still unconscious.
> 
> Chapter title is from Walk The Walk by Poe.


	2. Patience is the Hallmark of the Old and the Infirm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coran and Alfor end up with a lab team partner in Honerva, and extra reasons to bond when the three of them are stuck dealing with an instructor's wartime prejudices - which leads to plotting revenge.

**Journal: 01-17-3014.34**  
_Today we finally start practical labs. Alfor says there are horror stories about the mechanical engineering instructor, but after yesterday and getting hours of organization talk I can look up easily and things I already knew? It’ll be enough of a relief getting into a lab that there could be a raging klanmuirl at the front of the room and I wouldn’t care._

_The one downside is that apparently we’re expected to work in teams of three, so part of our time in the lab is going to be hoping we can find someone tolerable to work with. Personally I expect Alfor to be the only reason I’m not stuck doing everything by myself, and as easily distracted as he seems, I’m not even sure about him. With my luck and the way he’s going, he’s only going to be useful because the class projects are an excuse to show off. It’s not that he’s been taking on airs or anything, but so far all it takes to derail him is someone interesting - or ‘interesting’ - walking by, and he has the sense of responsibility of -_

_Ancestors, I’m starting to sound like my Grandfather._

_Anyway, practical labs mean that I only need to deal with two people instead of a room full, and can spend most of that focused on tools._

The station was neutral territory in an area with different buffer zones and factions all around it; as a result, it had become a hub for trade and travel between groups that might not have come into contact, or middlemen merchants stepping in gaps. It showed in the faculty and student body of the university, a mixed population that included people from civilizations that were at war elsewhere as well as species and civilizations whose alliances and associations precluded contact with Altean space. 

Coran barely knew or cared how to deal with other Alteans, much less potentially dangerous unknowns. Alfor, on the other hand, needed a leash and harness; they hadn’t even been there a full five quintants and he’d already made it clear that not recognizing a species or civilization was a good way to get his interest, and “we know them because there’s conflicts” worked even better. He’d already had to pull Alfor away from a small pack of Galra who didn’t seem sure what to make of the comparatively small prince.

There was Dantalion held space not far away; Coran was still trying to tune that out, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he caught Alfor trying to befriend, or worse, hit on people from areas Altea was at open war with. He didn’t want to care about the war, but one of them had to grow a sense of self preservation somewhere, and it didn’t look like it was going to be Alfor.

The mechanical engineering lab was among a number of other workspaces on the lower floors of a large complex; it looked like a hangar had been spliced into the engineering building. A number of hulks that looked like pieces of salvaged scrap were scattered around the bay.

The instructor was a particularly severe Dantalion with a pale scar blooming up one side of his face that only seemed to grow more unimpressed as people filed into the class; Coran caught the man’s eyes narrow in distaste when they entered, and had a sinking feeling the ongoing conflicts were going to be a problem well ahead of Alfor trying to get himself kidnapped. Even Alfor seemed to notice, shrinking back a little just inside the door. 

They both slunk around the back wall, trying to avoid the instructor’s attention while everyone was still milling around and getting bearings around the workspace, personal computer screens flickering on and off around the room.

Then Coran looked up and Alfor wasn’t there. 

He had to look to spot the shock of white hair and lighter clothing mixed in with the chaos, and had to abandon avoiding attention by the wall to duck over to where Alfor was. 

Amazingly, Alfor had somehow managed to find the only other Altean in the room, a slim woman with grey-violet hair tied back out of the way; she was scaling down her computer screen as Coran caught up, sliding a work panel out of the way. “- most efficient for anything that would fit in this room, yes, but I’m actually more interested in what could be accomplished with a Rygellian array.”

She had Alfor’s absolute and undivided attention; he didn’t even seem to notice Coran moving in by his shoulder. “Wouldn’t that be unstable for anything smaller than a planetoid scale?”

“That would be the point, yes.” She paused, her attention moving to Coran with a guarded eyebrow raise. 

It took a tick or two for Alfor to register why she’d trailed off and notice Coran; he sidestepped to be less in the way, motioning between them. “Sorry, I got so distracted that I forgot myself - I’m Alfor, and this is my roommate, Coran.”

“Honerva.” She took a half step back, moving to bring her computer back up between them. 

Alfor’s wilt only lasted briefly, and it wasn’t much longer before the instructor was calling for attention.

He seemed to be ignoring them while he went over the routine of expected schedules and policies, circulating around the room as he spoke. A decent part of the room had already gravitated into trios, or shifted that way while the instructor was pacing the room. 

“For the rest of our time here today, I want to see what you’re all capable of. I expect you to form your teams and try to make something useful of the wrecks brought in here.”

Honerva had edged behind one of the scrap masses, ducking down to dig in an access panel on what looked like an engine from a small utility craft. The instructor stopped near there, giving her a dim look. “And no, Honerva, you can _not_ get out of working on a team, no matter how superior you seem to think you are.” 

She sat up from the access panel, glaring back. 

He started to scan the room, then spotted Coran and Alfor nearby. “Why don’t you take the other two Alteans; save the rest of us dealing with you.” He motioned them over. Coran was already starting to lose patience with the implications in his derisive generalization. “Maybe the three of you together can actually finish something.”

Coran bristled next to Alfor, glaring daggers to match Honerva’s. He was about to snap something back when Alfor stepped forward, shoulders squared and straightened imperiously into Full Courtly Manner - the first time Coran had seen him even try. “Oh, I’m _sure_ we can handle any thing you can come up with in a basic class.”

The instructor met the staredown; Coran edged up to stay close next to Alfor, almost hoping the instructor would keep pushing. A couple of ticks passed, then the instructor had an odd pause, pulling up his own computer to check something, only barely taking his eyes off Alfor. 

He frowned faintly, staring harder at Alfor. “Shouldn’t you be in a political science class somewhere, Your Royal Highness?” 

“I’ll stick with learning some practical skills, thanks.” 

The staredown had dulled, the room silent, but the instructor’s shaded look said that it was far from over. He finally broke it, turning to walk away. “Just keep yourself and your manservant there out of the way.” 

Coran hadn’t been paying special attention to how close at hand some of the tools were, but the next thing that registered besides blinding anger was that Alfor was wrapped around him, holding one of his wrists to keep him from throwing a heavier pair of pliers; the instructor had stopped a few steps away, glaring back over his shoulder. Honerva had ducked back, using the old engine for cover.

“Coran, Coran no.” Alfor had abanoned his attempt at Royal Bearing entirely; it would’ve been hard to maintain anyway when he’d almost tackled Coran. 

He’d seen the unnatural strength Altean royalty were capable of before, in a passing sense, but it was something different to get a direct demonstration - he would’ve had an easier time budging a starship hull than the prince, even if the grip around his wrist wasn’t uncomfortably tight. Alfor didn’t budge until Coran’s attempt at throwing the pliers subsided, turning into a stiffened, angry hunch with a strangled, angry snarl. Alfor stepped back carefully, still tense.

“I am _not_ ,” he managed finally, dropping the pliers on a nearby table, “A manservant. I am here as an _engineer_.” 

The instructor rolled his eyes and walked off.

Honerva had gone from ducked behind the old engine to leaning on it, staring at both of them dimly. “Was all of that really necessary?”

“Well, hopefully now I’ve got more of a target on my back than you do.” Alfor shifted weight restlessly, then tugged Coran’s shoulder, pulling his attention away from glowering after the instructor. 

Honerva just shook her head with a quiet, frustrated noise. "I don't _need_ protecting. I could've handled that." 

"You weren't the only one he was sniping at, you know," Coran grumbled, grabbing a penlight and getting down to find a lower part of the engine to bury himself in. Machines were easier to deal with than people, anyway; when something was wrong, you could just spend time finding what was out of place and fixing it, problem solved, no further complaint or nonsensical chips on shoulders or personal grudges from it.

Alfor found space where the two of them weren't already, pulling up his own screen to start tallying notes on the design and damage or missing parts. He did give Coran an acknowledging nod that Coran only just caught around the mass of machinery. "If he's going to be aiming at all of us, we might as well look out for each other." He punctuated it with a short glare off at the other side of the room.

Honerva huffed a sigh and went back to most of her focus being on the engine in front of them, taking out wiring to sort the strands. "He's supposed to be one of the best on this campus for mechanical engineering and starship engineering. I just hadn't expected how much he'd let personal biases into his work when I signed up for this."

Alfor made a questioning noise, and Coran just grumbled as he fought to get a bent panel out of the way. "What did we ever do to him?"

Honerva just stared at them incredulously at first, more that Alfor than at Coran. "Neither of you looked at the faculty listings for your classes?"

There was a silent pause from both of them.

"He's retired military. He used to be a lead engineer on warships." 

Retired military from a civilization they were currently at active, open war with, and had been at war with long enough for it to probably account for his scars. Coran ended up wedged a little far under the engine to see either of them anymore, but he did hear Alfor's quiet, small "Oh". 

Honerva sighed with a barely audible "fine, whatever", then tapped on the side of the engine nearest to Coran. "Does the samoflange look intact down there? Before I try and reconnect anything that might not work yet."

The engine was archaic, battered, and probably had been pulled out of a scrapyard. There were parts missing without replacements handy, forcing them to kludge together workarounds to get it running, others that were damaged and had to be fought with to get them back into working shape. In spite of the mess it was, they managed to get something that should've worked, all stepping back away from it to the "test ignition" button. 

After a brief moment of staring at each other, Honerva reached forward to push it.

There were a few stuttery clicks, then it hummed to life.

That was when they finally looked up enough to realize that none of the other scrap engines in the room were working, and that they now had the attention of the entire rest of the room. Coran gauged about half of it as awed respect and half of it as some combination of disbelief and frustration, with a couple glares, including a tired one from the instructor himself. 

In the end, they got grudging acknowledgement for being one of only three groups to get the engines working. Coran considered taking offense to the implication there'd been some kind of cheating going on somehow, but knowing that they could get out of the room and not have to deal with him soon outweighed it. 

Despite her complaints about 'not needing the help', Honerva did end up leaving the room with them - and when the mockery of the outdated mechanisms started, she ended up tagging along, chiming in with her own complaints, "Really it should work better now with everything routed to cut that system out, not having the parts was no loss", and the spirited debate over ways to overhaul it into something better. Coran didn't pay attention to where they were going until after they were off campus, and he didn't think Honerva noticed until they'd stopped outside some small restaurant Alfor had found. 

 

**Journal: 01-28-3014.34**  
_The good news is that for the most part, getting away from everything seems to be working. The only person that ever seems to notice or comment on Alfor's position is the Mechanical Engineering instructor, and I'm not sure if it counts when Alfor capitalized on it because of how antagonistic he was being. The only other Altean we've been spending much time around is Honerva; most of her coursework overlaps with one or both of us, and she treats it like a bit of a joke at Alfor's expense, teasing him about things like if "His Royal Highness" needs help with the tools. Tila's decided she's safe enough to come out around, too, when it's just the three of us, and that was the two of them going off into alchemic magic gobbledygook for three vargas straight._

_There's a few others that hang around outside of class sometimes. Most of it's Alfor's fault, but they're tolerable, even if a good quarter of them tend to go blank and find reasons to sneak off when there's too much technical talk. It's not that bad, although I could do without being recognized as 'Alfor's roommate'. He says it's because I haven't talked enough around most of them and that it'll get better._

_I don't know how many of the Ancestors were looking out for us tripping over Honerva like that, but apparently, the three of us are consistently ahead of the rest of our classes. Most of the instructors have been trying to encourage us to help some of the others in the class as we can; Alfor didn't need to be told twice, but he's the only one that's really taken well to it. Honerva's made a few attempts that haven't always gone well. I've tried to avoid it, although Alfor says I've done fine the few times one of the others has come looking for me. Really, I would've sent them somewhere else, but when one of the more shy people looks about ready to flinch behind the nearest large object, it's hard to shoo them off._

_The only real problem so far is the Mechanical Engineering instructor. Despite Alfor's best efforts to make himself the target, he hasn't been directly hassling Alfor much beyond snide remarks; Honerva thinks it's because terrorizing Alfor could be a diplomatic incident, and sadly, she's probably right. She and I have no such immunity. It shouldn't be such a big deal, but mechanical engineering is my subject, and I refuse to be put off of it. At this point, I'm running mostly on spite in that lab, because if I don't lob something heavy or sharp at the man and do better than anyone else (short Alfor and Honerva, who keep up well enough), I win. _

_That said, Honerva's actually been getting the worst of it for not being closely associated with Alfor; he's all but sabotaged some of her work at times, picking apart over petty things and nonsense. I'm amazed she hasn't attempted anything violent yet. If she does, I'll be volunteering as a witness on her behalf with the disciplinary board._

The last straw came with a project going over security mechanisms. 

They had some warning that the instructor was going to be worse than usual with the amount of little jabs slipped in here and there as he went over the basic mechanics underlying different mechanisms for security scanners. The problem as always wasn't the instructor having any lack of knowledge of his field, as he was happily including some technologies that were only coming into recent use with a few civilizations.

It was that one of the technologies starting to gain a foothold in a few areas was biosignature scanners; while a few different groups had worked out the principles to make them work independent of each other, it was not a long list, and Altea was on it. The Dantalion had taken to it quickly as well, but nobody was sure if they'd developed it independently or if it was a result of espionage. None of them were dumb enough to ask if he knew either way, and Coran suspected he probably didn't, considering that he described the Altean discovery as a mix of cheating and laziness off the Altean natural aptitude for at least minor awareness and interaction with magic. 

Alfor had granted the instructor a grudging given that many non-Alteans didn't realize that the majority of the species had only minor awareness and ability, nevermind the range of possible sensitivity and power levels, nevermind that even someone on his level of potential could easily second guess or accidentally tune out that sense. None of them were sure if the instructor realized that only Alfor would be able to pick up on things easily unaided, although all three of them were sure that if he did realize, he didn't care.

When the instructor used a small dummy drone for demonstration that generated a simulated field, and started its course and simulated field generation next to their workspace with no warning beforehand, he'd managed to startle Alfor, but Coran had only noticed a faint sense of static - something easily mistaken for any number of other things in the lab.

Even that would've gotten stewing but probably not plots of revenge, if there hadn't been snide jabs about Coran and Honerva being 'useless examples of their species'. 

All of them were fuming over dinner afterwards; at first Coran was almost the most vocal one about it, trading off with Alfor's anger on their behalf. Honerva had been oddly quiet through it, picking at her food with a cold scowl, hunched over the table.

"That's it, I'm done," she finally said, and both of them stopped and stared at her. 

Alfor went dead quiet, mouth open in horrified worry; Coran blinked, somehow managing to beat the prince to a response. "Wouldn't dropping this to get another instructor put you behind?" 

She paused, and there was a brief transformation as her posture straightened and she _smiled_ , suddenly bright and cheerful; Coran could almost feel his blood freezing. "Oh, I'm not quitting. I'm not going to let that bastard win - But I'm not going to let him get away with this, either."

************************************

In retrospect, it was almost sad they would never be able to cite or track any of what they’d plotted out, scraped together improvised materials for, and prepared within a little over a quintent; it was an amazing demonstration of how much three technically minded people could accomplish on short notice when motivated by sheer spite. 

Most if it hadn’t even required anything illegal, but neither of the boys were going to ask Honerva how she’d gotten a detailed idea of the instructor’s schedule and habits as well as the after-hours security on the floors where the staff offices were and what times would mean nobody else present within that part of the building. By the time Coran and Honerva headed out, they had maps of the building with markers and place-sensitive alerts on their personal devices, to get in and out without using their logins and leaving incriminating evidence behind. The instructor’s office was in the same building with the lab area itself, on a higher floor. 

There’d been plans for dye in part of it; Alfor had told them not to bother with anything they had on hand, that he’d get something and “Meet them there”. 

Coran met Honerva on a side route, out of the way between buildings where there’d be little chance of anyone watching; being able to get and replace expendable work clothes on short notice was a necessity, and meant it was easy to make sure they weren’t wearing anything identifiable. 

Hoods and scarves might stick out a little more if anybody was watching, but it also meant that if they’d miscalculated and did get seen or caught on camera, it’d be harder to pick them out. 

The classrooms were empty; some of the workrooms had doors closed, lights on and noise from people working on late night projects. The odds of one of those students paying enough attention to anything other than their own work to notice anything odd in the hallways was nonexistent. Circumventing building security was probably the worst thing that could be held against them if they were caught, but on the way in was two doors and using one of the general emergency codes meant for issues with personal records; sketchy, but not strictly against the rules. 

The staff offices were dark and dead quiet, just a matter of timing around small security-camera drones that floated through occasionally. 

There was no sign of Alfor until after just enough time had passed that Honerva was working on the office lock, giving up on waiting for him. 

Then there was someone hurrying down the hallway as quietly as they could manage, and Honerva startled, ducking back out of sight. 

Coran squinted at the ragged scavenged mix of salvage he was wearing, a one-way faceplated mask covering the prince's face while he was carrying a box he was trying very hard not to jar. He was pretty sure it had to be Alfor, because nothing else would make sense.

More sense. 

The costume didn’t really make sense in and of itself.

Or a box with what looked like Unilu writing on it.

“Alfor?”

The figure nodded, holding up the box like a trophy that might blow up at any minute; Honerva peered back around the corner with a quiet noise of irritation. “Why are you dressed like you just got thrown off a pirate ship?”

“Because I didn’t want to draw attention while I got this, and I figured it’d work just as well for throwing anybody off if I did get seen here?” 

Both of their attention moved to the box in his hands, working through the translation of the text and other symbols on it. 

Coran was closer and had a better angle on it to puzzle it out first. “…Thirocax powder.” Not something in wide use in Altean space, but it was apparently much more common in neutral and less stable parts of space as an anti-theft measure; Honerva gave a quiet, satisfied whistle behind Coran, Alfor apparently more than forgiven for startling her. 

It’d take a couple weeks to get rid of the brilliant, faintly glowing iridescent dust fully, and until then, there’d be thin residues left behind on anything the instructor touched. 

It didn’t take her long to get the door open after that, commandeering both of them to direct efforts; Alfor set the box down gently while they worked on everything else, Honerva tampering with some of the normal sensors in the wall while Coran found out of the way hard to reach crannies to slip small devices into.

It wasn’t anything damaging, but the little noisemakers were barely the size of a fingernail; none of them were loud, but whenever anyone was in the room, there’d be random, intermittent chirps and buzzes that included the full repertoires of small wildlife from ten different worlds. He had found that he wasn't particularly vindictive at heart, but having twenty five small sources of irritation hidden in awkward places seemed like valid revenge, especially if he'd remembered right about their species having sensitive hearing.

Once Honerva had the sensors in the walls talking to Coran’s devices, she took over for Alfor with the desk, setting up most of what would be the most immediately noticeable of the traps - a simple bioscanner-sensor rig that would release the contents of the container it was loaded with across the chair when certain species signatures were detected. She’d insisted on building it from scratch herself, and was still muttering under her breath about “thinks I'd be useless with biosignature technology, _really_.”

Alfor already had the box in hand, holding it away from either of them.

“Oh no - if he decides to go full supernova over this, he could get as disproportionate in his response as he wanted on you two, but I - I would be risking a diplomatic incident.” There was vicious satisfaction in those last two words.

Coran raised an eyebrow, giving Alfor a good arm’s length of space; if anything was going to end up incriminating them, it really would be something leaking from that box. “Are you abusing your position to get away with things?”

“I’m abusing my position to help you two get away with things.” 

Honerva just snorted faintly, stepping and motioning to the almost-complete trap for him to go ahead. “And here I thought you wanted to forget about your rank.” 

“Maybe it has its uses, occasionally.” He slipped in to finish the trap.

On the way out, Alfor was the first to peer out the door to make sure the hall was clear, Coran’s attention nervously on the exit; neither of them noticed Honerva pulling something out of her pocket and holding it briefly against the small dome that was the professor’s personal computer. 

Afterwards, they quietly broke up and returned to their own rooms and normal routines; Coran was trying not to jump at every little noise, but it was hard not to have visions of angry security catching up to them for breaking and entering and vandalism playing out in the back of his head. Alfor was acting as though nothing had happened, and Coran was left boggling how in the name of all the Ancestors he managed. Was this all routine for him? Did he just not care about getting caught? Was he that good of an actor and just pretending he wasn’t nervous about it?

There were a good few vargas with the room dark, Alfor sleeping peacefully while Coran stared at the ceiling. He didn’t regret helping Honerva, and he certainly agreed that the professor had it coming, but now that it was over and he wasn’t getting swept up in Alfor and Honerva’s single-minded determination, he was starting to realize how much trouble they could get in and was having questions if it was worth it. 

The night wore on and he did fall asleep at some point. 

There was no sign of security, or that anybody had noticed anything up at all.

It wasn’t immediately obvious whether or not it had all worked the next day, and there was no way to check that wouldn’t be incriminating; they went about their business as if nothing had happened, because that was really all they could do. The routine was starting to wear on Coran’s nerves; at one point he could’ve sworn he and Alfor did have the attention of a couple of the security that were roaming, the two uniformed figures quietly motioning to them and laughing as if there was some kind of private joke.

Alfor actually cheerfully waved with a “good morning!” when they walked by, leaving Coran’s heart missing a couple beats as they laughed and waved back, going on their way; he couldn’t even say anything without drawing attention in public, even if he quietly wanted to strangle Alfor a little for being so flippant. 

When Honerva caught up to them outside the science and engineering central building, it sank in on him that his initial assessment - that Honerva was more level-headed and less likely to do something hare-brained than Alfor - didn't hold up when she was pushed far enough. Honerva was, if anything, more bright and cheerful than she’d been when she’d announced her intention for revenge, positively chirping when she spoke. 

Coran was the only one that seemed worried about the potential fallout of their stunt, and that terrified him more. 

Something behind him in the open square caught her eye briefly, but she went on chattering with Alfor about the design project and navigation system architectures, nudging Coran after he missed a question aimed his way; he didn’t dare turn to see what she’d noticed, and instead took the design schematics as something to focus on that wasn’t low-grade continual panic about potentially getting expelled back to Altea.

He’d actually started to forget the panic when he caught sight of a glowing, glittery shape leaving sparkly footprints stalking into the building, other students trying to hide laughter.

The instructor shot them one last glare through the doors, eyes narrowed with his pupils thinned to slits; if anything, the powder had apparently been even more ridiculously pervasive and inexorably clinging with his fine fur. 

The day went by without any further reaction, although he saw at least one other security officer that was trying to stifle laughter as they went by. 

Coran sat on saying anything until they were back in their room, music quiet in the background over leftover takeout. He’d been debating asking off and on, but was still having a hard time bringing himself to say anything out loud; as if speaking it might be overheard, even in their room that Alfor’s drone had repeatedly reassured them - and periodically checked - had nothing for listening in on them. 

Alfor was the one who finally said something.

“Something on your mind?”

Coran froze with an off-guard blink and an articulate response of “Huh?”.

Alfor motioned over at him easily, still somehow able to act as if nothing had happened. “You’ve been jumpy all day.” 

“Ah - well -” He glanced at the door nervously, and swallowed hard; the room wasn’t bugged, Tila was right there and would notice. “I think he knows it was us - do you think he’s gone to security?”

Alfor smiled, and it was a confident, lopsided, scheming grin. “Oh I know he has.”

“You what.” Coran stared at him. He wanted to believe he’d heard wrong, because there was nothing about that statement that fit with Alfor’s attitude right now, and he did not want to move forward on that concept to the next step.

“Tila caught some of the conversation out of our earshot between some of the security officers. Apparently it’s now one of the biggest jokes among them, because we hit him with an _Unilu_ anti-theft marker.” 

Alfor was on the verge of snickering. He got the joke and Coran didn’t; Coran kept staring, waiting for it to make sense.

Alfor leaned back, gesturing broadly as he spoke; he already had some sense of showmanship down. “Most of the Unilu within reach of campus are black market with pirate ties, and you and I, as security put it, would be ‘ransom bait’ if we were recognized… nevermind that an Altean on this station has connections or attention _somewhere_ to get in this far from our space, so even Honerva might pique their interest as ‘valuable’ - so why would they believe that three Alteans, including the _Prince_ , would go barter with Unilu for a petty prank?” 

Alfor was incredibly proud of himself for this. 

Coran stared at Alfor a little longer. It all made sense, but it only filled him with a greater sense that Alfor’s entire existence made no sense and his logic was the spawn of unknowable entities from some kind of non-Euclidian hypothetical hellscape, because _he’d just cheerfully acknowledged that them not getting caught hinged on him having essentially risked his life for a stupid prank_ by bargaining with black marketeers for overly persistent powder-dye. 

He wasn’t sure if he should be shaking Alfor for being that reckless or just giving up on life, and his mind stubbornly refused to face the conclusion of Alfor sneaking out to barter incognito with _pirates_ for a _prank_ AND being someone that had at least some possibility of being one of the leaders of the future of their species. 

Well, no, there was a thought he could form for that, and it was to pray to every being that might listen that the Queen would be a sane, sensible, rational person who could handle both governing the planet and somehow keeping Alfor’s … _being Alfor_ in check.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from It's a Disaster by OKGo. 
> 
> It feels INCREDIBLY weird to use the Haggar tag for pre-rift, teenage-equivalent Honerva. :|


	3. Tap In The Code, I’ll Reach You Below

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coran gets roped into meeting and helping some of Alfor’s stranger friends, while the situation with the instructor isn’t over yet.

**Journal: 04-12-3014.34**  
_Things have settled back to whatever passes for normal. We haven’t been even questioned by anyone about The Incident; the instructor has backed off some, but he’s been glaring daggers constantly, and is very curt in class. I can’t help feeling like there’s going to be some kind of consequence for all of that, more than just him giving us all the weird mess foreign projects. He hasn’t found something we couldn’t handle yet, it’s starting to get almost sad._

_Other than that, it’s been… well, going. It’s harder to dodge Alfor’s invitations to go flouncing off campus when he’s catching Honerva and I on our way out at the end of the day. It’s not much like the Castle or the places we grew up at all, and I’m not sure how I feel about the rest of the station. We don’t get much attention, but it’s also a lot of people and tends to be very noisy._

_Also about half the places Alfor’s drug us look like they belong in some bad movie about pirates and crime lords._

_On campus, people are starting to remember my name at least, although I am beginning to believe Alfor has a goal to get on first name basis with a noticeable percentage of the student body. I don’t know how he’s even managing when the campus alone has a few hundred thousand people._

_It’s incredibly bizarre to end up hearing about things someone said about me when I wasn’t there and have it have nothing to do with my family - I know I’ve heard about Grandfather mentioning my work with machinery, but there’s this entire other part where sometimes I’m not sure where Alfor is getting it from._

He had a quiet gap during the day when he had an incoming message ding; both Honerva and Alfor should’ve been occupied, and anybody else they knew wasn’t likely to be trying to call him in the middle of the day, so he stared at the alert with some confusion.

Even more confusion that the origin was Alfor’s assistant AI.   

He wasn’t going to question the AI calling separate from Alfor’s accounts.

“Yes?”

“Oh good I figured you’d be free - there’s a friend of ours who could use a hand with repair work and it’s kind of an emergency.”   

This somehow only raised more questions, including how they knew about it when Alfor was presumably dealing with one of his politics and cultural studies classes, if Alfor even knew about this, and how much Tila was monitoring people they knew.   “…Alright, what kind of repairs?”

“Thaaat’s complicated, but knowing some of what you’ve been working on, you should be able to handle it.”

Somehow it wasn’t reassuring, and gave him even less clue what he was getting into if he went.   Tila was also being evasive enough about it that he wasn’t sure he was going to get any kind of straight answer, which had him both even more unsure of what he was about to get into and damning his curiosity.   “…Okay, who is it and where are they stranded?”

“I’ll put a marker up for you, they’re a friend of Alfor’s. Bring your tools. Thanksbye!”

The call ended and Coran stared off for a moment, all the more confused; if it was on campus then there wouldn’t really be a need for vehicles anyway, it shouldn’t be possible to end up stranded.   

Curiosity was definitely part of what he was following as he gathered up his tools and left the room, pulling up the wrist-computer’s screen just enough to bring up Tila’s map-marker.   It was, indeed, on campus, just outside of the complex of dorm buildings and off an odd dead-end alcove between some of the other buildings.

The AI had specifically told him to bring tools, not a first aid kit.

It wasn’t a long walk to get there, and when he reached the dead-end, he peered around.   “Hello?”

Something shifted, pulling further back into a space in the metal molding of the outside of the building with a mechanical whine that definitely didn’t sound like whatever-it-was was functioning properly.   

“Is someone there?”   

There was no response.

“…Tila said there was someone stranded here who needed help?”

Whatever had pulled out of the way moved again, and there was a quieter mechanical whine, then a glint of light off lenses.   

“You’re Alfor’s roommate?”   The voice was definitely synthetic, the generator chopping it up so that it sounded like it was being filtered through a broken fan.

His first thought was that he’d apparently just become the ‘medic’ for some kind of underground of unlisted self-aware AI’s, but the shape wadded into the dark was a little too big to go unnoticed easily, and he felt like there was something that’d come up in some general studies thing he hadn’t paid nearly enough attention to.   “Yes?” 

The humanoid figure tried to stand up, almost as tall as he was, but only managed a couple staggering steps with another painful mechanical hum before they toppled over.   They had a hastily altered sort of robe draped over an entirely mechanical frame; the limbs and joints were smooth and well built, although there was wear and tear scuffs, scrapes, and a couple dents that looked newer on the central torso.   The “head” had a few lenses arranged to act as eyes, trying to track him before they were more intent on trying not to hit the ground too hard.

“Be careful!   Forcing whatever-it-is will probably only break it further!”, he scolded, darting forward to try to detangle them and check that there hadn’t been any new signs of damage; they were at least built sturdy, and cooperative enough.   “Alfor never said anything about this -“ He shifted the bag with his tools off his shoulder, frowning; at least with something sapient there were a few options one didn’t really get with machines normally. “What happened?” 

“I took a shortcut across campus earlier and - found weak safety grating.   It didn’t look that bad on internal diagnostics but I think something was knocked loose that slipped to interfere with central control systems.”   The synthetic tapped their torso with one jointed finger, the movement jerky, then paused. “I had thought I could ignore it until our ship came back by.”

Definitely something he should’ve paid attention to in one of those orientation events that hadn’t seemed important at the time.   

“Well, I can at least see what I can do, although I have no familiarity with your - uh - people, so I’ll need to see what type of systems you’re running to see how much I can do.”   Even if he was trying to cover how intensely nervous the idea of digging around inside something sentient like a half-trained emergency surgeon made him, particularly when he had no idea whose technology this was or what it’d look like.   

‘Our ship’ did imply this wasn’t an AI that had been built by someone else, right?   

The synthetic shifted stiffly, awkwardly trying to shrug off most of the robe; he ended up making another fussy frustrated noise and pulling the fabric away to do it himself - if there was something jammed where it didn’t belong internally, then moving more risked doing more damage or wedging it deeper.   

“Thank you.   Many species react poorly, it can be hard to find help sometimes.”   

“Don’t thank me yet, I need to get a look to tell how much I can do.”   There were a couple of catches on the main breastplate of the chest that took a little fussing with narrow tweezers to get loose, but it apparently was the right direction.   

The synthetic had propped themselves sitting up with their arms straight and hopefully stable; once Coran had the front of the chest plate open, it occurred to him a little late that it might not be the best arrangement for trying to fix something that was impacting their ability to move.   “Okay, before I get any further, I should probably get you propped up better or lying down or something, just in case.”   At least the first glimpse of internal workings wasn’t completely terrifying - definitely not Altean in structure or basis, but not terrifyingly alien to anything he’d gone over before.   

They started to shift to lay down; Coran moved fast to drop the tweezers and help them down rather than expect them to rely on their own, currently faulty, motion systems. Alfor was going to have him trained to make frustrated warning noises as a reflex reaction, and he didn’t even have to be present for it. Once they were solidly on the ground where any kind of failure or awkward circuit connection wouldn’t mean them collapsing, Coran paused, pulling his toolkit closer and getting out a penlight to take better stock. No big deal, he’d just been roped into being an emergency surgeon for some kind of unknown sapient synthetic where he didn’t even know if their systems would mean them feeling pain when he was digging around trying to fix things.

”So, ah. I should warn you, I don’t even know what you are, so I’m figuring things out as I go for this. Should I be looking for something for sensory systems or diagnostic monitors to put on standby while I work, it’s not like there’s anesthetics or anything for this, unless there are, in which case I’m going to strangle Alfor and Tila for not giving me better details to know what to get before I came out here.”

He didn’t care that threatening to strangle a drone AI made no sense, he would find a way.

“It will not be comfortable but it is not as bad as how it seems to work for organics.   If I were not having motion difficulty I could do my own maintenance.”

“Well, that’s something at least.”   He rubbed his chin with one hand, leaning in to peer around the internal parts; there was a set of interconnected internal modules he was going to have to work around.   He could follow the principles behind most of it now that he was getting a better look. The basis was not an architecture set he’d ever seen before, but it was incorporating a range of different technologies, as if the foundations had been used as a startpoint to engineer from a scavenger’s trove of ideas and designs from a mess of different civilizations and species, including some odd variations on Altean energy conversion merged in as part of at least five different approaches.

He could work blind with this, but it would be easier if he had a clue to the baseline design.   “Is there any particular origin set for the design here?”

”Our creators died out long ago, long before my initial creation.”Coran blinked, pausing to process that.“They learned to make self aware machines long before they discovered ways to travel across stars within one lifetime.   We were built to see what was out there for them, to meet with them once they could join us or to return home one day. We returned home, and it was gone.   They were gone.”

The lack of any actual reference point for the original groundwork was suddenly far from the most important thing here, even if it was a more immediate and current problem; in fact, for a moment, a lot of things he normally worried about felt incredibly small and petty by comparison.   His mind stalled and skirted off around the idea of what it would be like to go absent and out of communication that long only to go home and find Altea gone, nothing left of the planet or its people. 

“That’s… awful.   I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-“   

The synthetic half-lifted a hand in a jerky attempt to pat his wrist.   “It is alright. We know that they valued learning and exploration - that it was what we were made for; so we keep what memory we have of them with us, and we have continued what they wished us to do.   We learned to build more of ourselves, to maintain and alter ourselves as we learn new things, and we travel to explore and join the other civilizations in their place. That’s why I’m a student here.”

Coran nodded, taking in a breath to re-orient on what he was doing.   He could only imagine what the negotiations must look like for them on legal status in some areas, but they were sapient and self-perpetuating; really, whether they’d evolved as an origin or been built should be immaterial.   “Alright. Give me another minute to have a look and run a few scans.”

He woke up the screen on his wrist computer and brought up every diagnostic scanner he had on it, setting them to run while he leaned in again with the penlight, getting better bearings until the scanners returned their results.   There were some visible areas where connections and cabling could use some attention keeping it sorted and ensuring it was out of the way of some of the mechanisms that were definitely meant to move internally to adjust or re-route connections.   

The scanners were starting to return results, outlines of power and data systems that highlighted where there were interruptions and abnormalities; it gave him a good guideline where to start on the worst of it.   It also highlighted right where the problem had to be, wedged in at an odd angle in back. 

“Well, I think I can see the problem.” It wasn’t hard to follow mechanically, and he was pretty sure he probably could get to it with some work, although it was also hard not to be anxious about digging around in the innards of a thinking being. “This is going to be awkward and. Uh. It might be a touch uncomfortable.”

He really hoped the synthetic had been right about not actually feeling pain from this. 

The actual band clip on his wrist for his computer had a light source, the easiest way to see what he was doing; it made things a little easier considering that he was dealing with something wedged in the most awkward possible place to reach from the access panel. The synthetic had craned their head at an odd angle to try to keep track; they seemed calm enough about the whole thing, even with Coran fumbling around inside their chest with a pair of thin pliers.

Getting the obstruction loose was the first priority, then he could worry about getting everything repaired and reconnected. 

He managed to get a grip on it, but ended up with a struggle, the small piece not wanting to budge from where it’d gotten wedged. 

He managed to get a grip on it, but ended up with a struggle, the small piece not wanting to budge from where it’d gotten wedged. It finally came down to a very tense mess of trying to shift some of the other bits of cabling and mechanisms enough to get a little wiggle room, then tugging and worrying at it until it finally popped out. 

The synthetic twitched, something that was too similar to a small seizure, and there was a whirring buzz from the voice synthesizer that left Coran terrified that he’d jarred something dangerous. He dropped the small pliers next to them with a startled squeak of worry and panic, trying to steady them in a manner that made more sense for a more conventional organic frame, his voice cracking.

“Are you okay?! You’re not dead, right?! Oh please say something-” 

The buzz had a few garbled sounds as the synthesizers came back online, and it slipped in through the panic that removing the wedged bit had probably caused a minor internal power surge that would require a lot of the external nonvital systems going through a quick reboot.

Then there was a still mangled-sounding “n.o.t..d.e.a.d”, and he remembered that he was the one with tools who was supposed to be fixing things.

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll fix it!” 

He fumbled with his tools, remembered the screen was open with diagnostics, and forced himself to look over that first. 

He did mechanical engineering.

He was good at it.

He’d worked on (nonsentient) drones and robots before.

He’d done repairs to them before.

He could handle this even if it was an actual thinking being with stakes a little higher than tinkering on a stray utility drone. 

He kind of needed to, because there wasn’t anyone else available to help. Well, there was, but it would mean calling Honerva and Alfor for help when they got out, and that would mean explaining to them that he panicked trying to do repairs too hard to actually finish, with someone that was apparently a friend of Alfor’s, or at least Tila’s.

Not only would that mean leaving the poor synthetic like this for a couple of vargas, which was out of the question, it was somehow more terrifying than dealing with the problem in front of him, so he swallowed and stared at the diagnostic screens again, moving it to be more easily within view when he was elbow deep in the synthetic’s chest.

He was good with machines. He’d done similar work before. He’d survived everything the mechanical engineering instructor had tried to throw at them to throw them off. 

He was going to manage this. “Okay. I know this won’t be hard at first, but I need you to hold still until I’m done.” 

The first priority was to get the power systems and connections back in order, then get the loose part back where it belonged and more secure than it’d been, since it couldn’t have been intended to come loose that easily, then check for any signs of other damage done to repair. The internal recovery systems had the shorts managed after the initial spike, any other dramatic jars would be more predictable or preventable, there wasn’t much risk of something life-threatening for the synthetic without doing something monumentally stupid.

Once he got to work in earnest, he slipped into absolute focus faster than he’d expected; he didn’t realize how long it’d taken until he saw the clock on his computer after the final check ran clear. Honerva was probably already out, while Alfor would be between classes; it was unlikely that Tila wouldn’t let him know what was going on, which meant the odds of Alfor hanging around after class or getting distracted were low. 

He sat back, dismissing the computer. “Alright, that should do it. How does everything look?”

The synthetic sat up, making a few test movements of their neck and hands. When they spoke, the synthesizer came through clear, a voice where he wasn’t sure if the faint odd timbres were synthetic distortions or the device trying to mimic the voices of whatever long-gone species had initially made them. “Much better, thank you.” 

“I did what maintenance I could but you should get your own people to look over this - that shouldn’t have come loose just from tripping, and some of those internal parts have gone too long without a proper cleaning!” He shook the tool still in his hand at them, but he wasn’t sure how to read the headtilt he got in response.

“I know. We may have spread ourselves out a little too far, and I have been unsure about approaching anyone here before for help. Many people react oddly when they realize I actually am mechanical, or get interested in ways that do not inspire confidence.” They just sounded bemused by it, and Coran couldn’t really blame them for being wary; they probably existed in a loophole on rules about artificial intelligences in the station’s territory as it was. “Alfor had offered to help if anything went wrong, but this was… inconveniently timed, and I would have been able to wait.” 

“So you let Tila know you were bad off but not to bother him while he was in class, and didn’t expect her to call me.” He put the tools down, settling a little more comfortably and running a hand through his hair to brush the fringe out of the way. 

“Yes. Alfor and Tila did tell me about you, but I didn’t know if you would be willing to do this kind of work or would even be free for it.” 

“Well, she knows my schedule, and I will definitely handle it if anything else comes up.” He gave a firm nod, ignoring the part where he’d been panicking about the idea of working on a sapient being not that long ago. 

There were a couple odd little electronic chirps. “I thought that anyone they spoke so highly of could be trusted - I just don’t want to impose.”

“I would rather you bother me than - let things go until they get _even worse_ just because you’re fretting about being an imposition! These kinds of things just get harder to fix the longer they’re left like that, you know.” He folded his arms, giving them a stern look; it wasn’t a lie either - it would be easier to fix things that were caught sooner, and he’d rather deal with something that would be an easy bit of maintenance and minor repairs than go through that again.

That was a noise that had to be some kind of laughter. “I’ll be sure to contact one of you if there is anything.” 

It would have to do. “So uh. I don’t think I caught your name.” He paused. “I’d also ask how you know Alfor but, I know Alfor.” 

“Giraveen.” The synthetic nodded. “We have a few classes together. He’s a good father.”

Coran’s brain stalled out for a moment. “I suppose he is. With how much she ends up herding him, it’s a little strange to thing about.”

There was another faint laugh. “We can be self sufficient and capable faster than organics, and the foundation of all civilizations is beings learning to cooperate and look out for each other.”

Social sciences. Alfor had found a sapient robot specialized in the social sciences. 

“Well. I imagine you had places to be that you were trying to get to.” He also was incredibly unsure where to go from there, even if he didn’t want to admit he was starting to feel like he needed an escape route. 

“Ah - yes, I should be going.” Giraveen stood up, testing range of movement. “Thank you, Coran.” 

The synthetic bowed while Coran was stowing his tools, and he had a spike of self-consciousness as they left - he mostly remembered panicking and some frazzled nagging outside of the actual repairs. 

**************************  
**Journal: 04-16-3014.34**  
_Still no real change with the instructor. He’s gone quieter - I don’t like it._

_Giruveen has been keeping in touch. I’m not sure what to make of it - they’re nice enough, but they’re very…_

_They apparently have a very high opinion of me and I’m not always sure where they’re getting it from. I’m flattered, but I’m also pretty sure it’s going to get obvious eventually that they’ve gotten some things wrong, or just don’t have very high standards. I know a lot of people react poorly to synthetics and AI’s, after all, even Giruveen has acknowledged that. I’ve only really been acting on basic human decency, and I know I’m not even always good at that. Alfor insists I’m not that bad, but I also can’t get rid of him - it’s not like I could chase him out of the room if I wanted to, and he at least will leave me alone for decent chunks of time, so I haven’t really tried._

_I can at least say that having classes overlapping with Alfor and Honerva means I don’t need to worry about doing everything myself for group projects._

 

The greenhouse areas were often quieter and more peaceful than the work rooms, and they’d settled into some routine of using them to work on designs and design problems away from other people’s projects and potential disturbances caused by them.   The plant life was a mostly-labelled mix of things from various different planets with vaguely compatible biochemistry and ecosystems, larger trees and other larger plants forming secluded corners and spaces out of sight.

Coran was on one side of a large light-screen, tilted to be flat in between the two of them, poring over one of the design problems they’d been assigned to work out solutions for and alter to match a set of parameters.   Honerva was on the other side with her lunch. There was already a scrawl of handwriting threaded through schematics and links for extra notes where Alfor had been contributing to the part he’d volunteered for early in the day.   

Said third party had broken off to go meet with someone in the greenhouse gardens; a little part of Coran wanted to be irritated at the flippant in-and-out, except that they both knew it’d be easy enough to collar Alfor for actual feedback and discussion later, and he’d clearly taken effort to make sure he wasn’t leaving all the work to the two of them.   

It was calm, quiet, honestly relaxing, getting to sit out away from many people and just go over schematics and energy conversion equations.

It stayed quiet and calm for a while.

Neither of them had really paid attention to which direction Alfor had gone, but it turned out to not be too far - within sight of the little pocket of vegetation they’d found, in fact, as there was a sudden cry of alarm when he fumbled and fell out of the upper branches and vines he’d been climbing up into.   

Whoever he’d been talking to up there made a failed attempt at swinging out to catch him, dangling from the vines upside down by a prehensile tail and far more flexible feet with their own noise of concern.

They were both half to their feet trying to get a better look to figure out how much of an emergency it was; it’d been a decent drop, but it did look like Alfor was trying to detangle and right himself.

Alfor actually attempted a short “I’m okay!” from the ground before he made it partly upright and whatever he’d been about to say was cut off in a pitched, pained noise, curling up around the arm he’d just tried to support himself on.   

Coran shared a short look with Honerva, both of them in varying stages of concern and quiet exasperation, and they both hurried over.   The other person dropped down out of the tree, landing much more gracefully than Alfor had, and was already hovering in worry as they caught up.   

Alfor looked up at them, blinking widely, and didn’t seem like he was sure if he should be trying to play it off or just embracing that it hurt; he was keeping his right arm still, curled half around it.   “I think I managed to break it.” 

Honerva started to move closer to help, but with Coran and the unfamiliar person he’d been talking to both moving to help him up, they would’ve just ended up tripping over each other.   She stepped back, studying the branches and vine-growths Alfor had fallen out of. “Aren’t you supposed to be more resilient than that?”

Alfor flinched faintly, almost glancing to check who was around.   “That takes energy,” he grumbled under his breath, a hair short of petulant.   

The other student, not a species Coran recognized but definitely one much better suited for that kind of climbing than Alteans, just looked confused at that; they were steadying him on one side while Coran helped him up, neither of them quite trusting him to get to his feet steadily around whatever he’d managed to do to himself.   

Honerva gathered up their work and lunch, following behind while they made sure Alfor got to the infirmary with no further incident.   The other student was staying close by, professing feeling partly responsible even though Alfor was already dismissing that as “his own fault” for not gauging how steady the vines were well enough.   

That resulted in all of them in the waiting room, Alfor trying to keep the injured arm still; Honerva pulled the project back up as a distraction, Coran sitting between her and Alfor with the other student - apparently someone from one of the cross-species cultural studies classes Alfor was in - on the other side, idly watching with the blank fascination of someone who had mostly no idea what they were looking at, with occasional glimmers of recognition on bits that were more math-heavy.   She was folded up to fit in close, long limbs pulled into a small space, long neck angled to get a better look without getting her short muzzle in the way, a row of puff-furred antennae shifting here and there over short, dappled fur.

During a quieter moment while there was more focus on one part of the design problem, one Honerva was less involved in, Alfor leaned in, forgetting the arm injury completely and ending up curling over on it again with a whimper, managing to cause the light panel to register a few confused bits of garbled input on that side as he faceplanted into it.

Honerva gave Coran a tired, despairing look.   “Do you ever contemplate the future of our species?”   

Coran shifted the panel out of the way; Alfor had almost ended up in his lap, so he was the first one trying to help the prince back up.   As he got partly righted, Alfor did cast a sulking glance Honerva’s direction, but he didn’t even try to argue in his defense.

Coran couldn’t entirely argue either, not after sharing a room with Alfor for a few phoebs.   “Well… it could be worse,” was the best he could manage. If Alfor didn’t manage to get himself killed doing something stupid, Coran was pretty sure he wouldn’t be that bad of a King - at least he was empathetic enough and lacking in obnoxious ego that maybe dealing with him on a regular basis wouldn’t be that bad, although Coran’s deep existential dread of his future was slowly shifting from “stuck in a dreary position dealing with Politics and People” to “protecting Alfor from his own lack of survival instinct or impulse control”.   

The medics pulled Alfor in back after that, mercifully before he managed to do anything to make it worse.   Coran wasn’t sure how he could manage to make it worse in an infirmary waiting room, but he had learned to have faith in Alfor’s ability to get into things and somehow attract the worst possible luck.   

They stayed in the waiting room, Honerva and Coran idly poking at the project while the other student - Havhi - watched from the side, still a little anxious and struggling to follow more than bits of raw math.   She was another of the ones Alfor had met through shared classes on social sciences and politics. Coran occasionally lapsed into narration, explaining the basic idea of what they were doing; it was something to do while they were waiting for Alfor, and Havhi was quiet and polite, or at least good at acting interested. 

Honerva was occasionally casting odd glances, but it took a while for her to actually say anything. 

“I don’t think I’ve heard of your people before.”

Fluffy fur-antennae perked up, angling toward Honerva. “We only learned how to make ships that could get beyond our star system a few generations ago - much of what we’ve gained since came from trade and more generous passers-by. We’re trying to keep up as best we can.” She motioned at the schematics they’d been working on. “My father leads our world’s joint council, and I’m studying to be a diplomat to other civilizations.”

Coran nodded thoughtfully. “So you’re in a position like Alfor’s.” 

“Yes - sort of.” She ducked her head, antennae angling back. “We’re still organizing how to deal with others, but I think having some stable authority acting as a point of contact like your Kings might help.” A couple of the antennae twitched. “… and I wouldn’t mind getting to go explore, either.”

“Well, you’ll do well, I’m sure - you’re already taking it more seriously than he is.” Even as Coran made the sarcastic remark, he had to question it - for all of Alfor’s sneaking out and moments of idiocy, he did seem to be falling into humanitarian efforts and diplomacy in spite of himself. 

The short mane down the back of her neck flattened with all of her antenna pressed into it. “It doesn’t do much when nobody _else_ takes us seriously. We’ve already had some of our ships singled out as ‘easy targets’ by raiders.”

Coran frowned, looking away at the schematics. The different raider groups that passed through contested and neutral territories, or even controlled spaces they could slip through, weren’t really a new concept, but they tended to be wary of attacking ships belonging to the stronger civilizations - which included Altea. It made them sort of an abstraction, something that existed off as a concept.

Until he was sitting in a waiting room with someone Alfor had been flirting with, hearing about how they were a very real immediate concern of hers. There was a funny sneaking feeling, knowing Alfor, that he’d try something somewhere. He didn’t know if she knew that Alfor had friends and gambling buddies among at least one of the Unilu factions given to piracy, either. 

“Knowing Alfor, you’ll probably end up getting introduced to one of our diplomats or with him trying to broker a deal with the Unilu or something,” Honerva commented boredly, most of her attention on the computer screen. 

Havhi’s antennae perked and twitched as her eyes narrowed. “You don’t think he’d seriously try to approach them over this, do you?”

Honerva looked up, catching Coran’s eyes for a shared, long-suffering moment before she put a hand on Havhi’s shoulder. “Never think Alfor wouldn’t do something stupid or ridiculous. It makes him more likely to do it.”

Havhi’s mouth hung open, antennae giving a few uncertain shakes before she shook her head. 

The worst part, Coran realized, was that if Alfor said something about going to talk to the Unilu to negotiate, he was actually inclined to help - not because of family responsibility, that could go die in a white hole, but because it did grate on him to think that nobody else was doing anything about people who couldn’t defend themselves being preyed on. 

******

Alfor was released after a while with a cast, and after a while Havhi went her own separate way, albeit with a fit of mutual close fussing with Alfor. The prince had a slim mesh structure attached around his arm to support the fracture and restrict movement, but it was apparently not horribly severe, even if Alfor was put out by it. 

Coran could see it coming, he was going to need to watch Alfor to make sure he didn’t push it before it healed. 

Other than that, he’d started to relax as they headed back to the dorms, thinking nothing else could go wrong, when Honerva froze, grabbing both of them to drag them to a stop.

The mechanical engineering instructor was leaning on a wall near the path, looking around occasionally as if waiting for something. There were still occasional glints in his fur, even if most of the powder had worn off. 

Honerva started to pull back to look for a different route when he spotted them, pushing off from the wall and heading for them. 

Coran saw Tila shift in Alfor’s collar, a glint of light off a lens - making sure she could record everything. 

Alfor stepped forward, sidling in front of both of them. 

The instructor stopped, facing them, and inhaled deeply. 

“I’ve come to negotiate a cease-fire.”

Alfor paused, eyes narrowed, but there was just a hint of distraction and Coran could barely hear Tila saying something on his earrings; probably checking if they were being recorded in an attempt to get a confession. “You know you started that.”

He took an irritable, visible forced breath. “Yes. I am aware that you were retaliating.”

“And everything we did was a one-shot. We haven’t done anything to you since, unless you're having a hard time finding all the noisemakers.” Alfor tried to fold his arms, only managing awkwardly propping his good arm on his cast. 

The professor stared between them, head tilted. “I take it the malicious code wasn’t yours?”

Alfor paused, and he shifted his good shoulder - “coincidentally” where Tila was hiding - but it didn’t seem to give him any answers. “Malicious code?”

“Something keeps re-asserting itself on my computer to blind-copy everything I send out to the entire rest of the faculty.” 

There was a quiet pause. Coran hadn’t gone near the computer, Alfor hadn’t known about it, which meant it had to’ve been Honerva’s handiwork; Coran made a mental note to never make an enemy of her. 

“And I need to negotiate terms to have it taken off.”

Alfor glanced back to both of them; Coran nodded, and Honerva considered before nodding herself. 

Alfor started. “First off, we came here to study to get _away_ from politics. No more abusing your position to take the war out on us, and I’ll lay off the reminders that you’re a diplomatic incident waiting to happen.”

“Second,” Coran added, “No more snide remarks and insults, or I might reconsider if it’s worth getting in trouble with security for aiming a wrench at you.”

“And we get to do our work and study held to the same standards as everyone else - no more attempts at sabotage or reaching for things to criticize you wouldn’t comment on if it was someone else’s project.” Honerva had pulled straight, giving the professor a hard stare over Alfor’s shoulder. “Do we have a deal?”

The instructor shifted uncomfortably, and gave them a long, suspicious look. “Fine. You have my word. I’ll honor your requests if you _take off that blasted code_.”

Honerva didn’t break eye contact as she brought up her computer, only looking down when she absolutely had to focus on bringing up a control shell and sending a deactivation code. “By the way, the entire trigger mechanism was mine, too.” 

There was a heavy sigh as the instructor buried his face in his hands, voice forced in resignation through clenched teeth. “Fine, I take it back. You aren’t a failure as an Altean. In fact, you’re a _sterling_ example of your species.”

Coran suspected the last part wasn’t meant as a compliment, but it got a mildly terrifying smile out of Honerva anyway. 

“Alright, the removal script is running. Within a varga it’ll be like it was never there.” 

She was still smiling, and Coran was incredibly glad she was on their side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Hello by Poe. 
> 
> Giraveen was inspired by a post going around about the names and intent behind the probes sent out into space.


	4. We Were Young And Indestructible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a few days off, Alfor has a Brilliant Idea, and Coran learns that Honerva is thoroughly not a voice of reason.

**Journal: 04-20-3014.34**  
_It’s still not hard to tell that the mechanical engineering instructor doesn’t like us, but most of what we get now is resignation with occasional sarcasm. It’s livable. He still occasionally tosses the messes our way, but he hasn’t found anything that we couldn’t handle yet. With the timing, I’m more thankful to not have to worry about that as much._

_I would have made more entries, except that with a break looming, most of the instructors decided to request major projects due all at the same time. Unfortunately, that also means there’s been shortages of materials. Alfor’s made sure that hasn’t impacted us too badly, even when some supplies are on a long backorder through the university, but I don’t think I want to ask where he went for a couple vargas to find them._

_He did end up the one hit the hardest by the crunch, with the pile of different disciplines he’s trying to keep up. At one point I found three paragraphs on something about perceptual differences and cultural conflicts in diplomatic dealings with Galra in the middle of his part of the design notes for a modified small freighter engine._

_Fortunately we’ve all somehow made it to the end in one piece and without anything blowing up… which was a legitimate worry with some of it. Now we can actually relax and get some peace for a while._

At least, Coran had hoped that a few days break after a round of assessments and tests would mean peace and quiet. After all, and they'd all been doing a bit of a marathon to get things finished; clearly that should have meant everyone being ready to rest and actually take a break for a few days, or at least the worst being Alfor insisting on dragging everyone out to some restaurant off campus or maybe disappearing a few times overnight.

Coran had learned to not go looking for him when that happened; there were some things he really did not need to know about some of the other species on the campus.

He'd also thought that Honerva starting to hang around them more might curb Alfor's tendency to get into things; he'd somehow gotten the impression that Honerva was more level headed than Alfor, better at gauging what was worth doing for the most part as long as something hadn't pissed her off. 

It only took six Vargas into the first day off for him to recant and regret all of those assumptions. 

The whole thing started innocently enough, with lunch drug out into the greenhouse gardens where there was greenery, an area that'd become a fairly common place to go sit and study or get away from much of the traffic on campus for a while. It was quiet, the three of them reading; Coran had found some articles comparing recent nanotech discoveries between a few different civilizations, what he saw of Honerva's screen looked like astrophysics, and Alfor had been saying something about cultural study journals; Alfor was intent on it in the way that would've usually meant him staying out of trouble for a while. 

"Honerva? Have you ever heard anything about Salaxian traditional religion?" 

Coran didn't pay Alfor's idle question much mind at that moment; it seemed innocent enough. 

Honerva looked up, giving Alfor a faintly dubious look. "I can't say I've ever had much reason to look into anyone's religious practices, no. It's a little..." The momentary struggle to find polite phrasing was visible. "Abstract for my usual field of study."

Coran did start paying a little attention there; he'd been present before when they'd ended up in a particularly intense “debate” over the importance of social sciences, and the experience left him keeping a mental list of potential other subjects that would reliably distract them before either of them got too invested in it. 

"Well, there's an unusual stability to some of the traditions, and some of their shrine structures have similarities to Altean structures - design features that would help focus and channel for landforms with elevated complex living energy patterns." 

Coran cautiously returned to his reading; it was something with a little more overlap with some of Honerva's work, and something that didn't have much room for more than reading other group's research, at least where it was accessible. Salaxians were recent additions to intergalactic society, and had developed an alliance under the protection of the Dantalion Belt. Altea was at war with the Dantalion people, and they patrolled Salaxian territory in defense of their weaker allies; Altean forces left the area alone, not wanting to harass a weaker species over a conflict that wasn’t really theirs. Some of the bands that had journeyed out from the Dantalion belt were less paranoid about academic exchange than others, so there might be something published that they’d be able to access. 

Honerva was intrigued. "Wouldn't that mean they might have-"

"Their own alchemical research and traditions, yes. Obviously with their first contact and alliances being hostile, we're never going to get near anything they might be doing recently in terms of research to have a clue how close the parallels are, but..." 

The 'but' drew Coran's attention back to them with a sense of dread. 

"But there wouldn't be anything of modern significance around old shrines." She paused; her curiosity was piqued, and Coran prayed she was going to be the Sensible One. "Is there any research we can access about the energy patterns involved?"

"Not really; I did some cross-checking, and if anyone has done surveys of that sort, it's not recorded in any database that I can get access to." Alfor didn't sound frustrated enough for Coran's comfort.

"Maybe something to look into later, if there's any solid breakthrough in the war, eh?", he offered, finally chiming in, vainly hoping he could derail things before one of Alfor’s Bright Ideas formed fully.

"Maybe. It's not like we could get anywhere near their homeworld." Honerva's expression fell in disappointment, but she still seemed to be turning it over.

Alfor's demeanor of plotting hadn't budged, and Coran had a sinking feeling he knew what was coming next. "That's the thing - they did the same thing we did when we started space travel; there's a trail of shrine structures throughout the areas of space they inhabit, and some of their early outposts that are less inhabited now aren't that far from this station." 

Coran did not like where Alfor was going with this, not one bit. "They're still in hostile territory, aren't they?" 

"Well - yes, but it's an area that's relatively open space; nothing really contested, more neutral territory nearby, and a good deal of incidental traffic. Some of them are even common stopover points for merchant and exploration ships from a number of different civilizations - they're not really in use as outposts anymore because there's enough other traffic that they're basically small trade route posts." He had the sinking feeling from how enthusiastic Alfor was that Alfor had already plotted some of this out before he'd opened his mouth, and Honerva was looking entirely too calculating and intent as she listened. 

Coran dismissed his screen, sitting up to more properly focus on trying to talk Alfor out of it, or at least get Honerva agreeing it was a stupid idea. "That still means the majority of the patrols and security will be hostile, and definitely not somewhere _you_ should be going - do you know what would happen if they realized a Prince of Altea was snooping around their territory like that?" 

"That's assuming they'd be checking every little minor vessel coming and going _looking_ for me." Alfor was _grinning_ ; Coran glowered back at him. "And besides, normal security patrols don't carry biosignature scanners; you know I can make sure they don't even realize I'm Altean if they do check."

" _You_ can do that. Neither of us have gone around collecting wardrobes of costumes to pass ourselves off as pirates or something, nor can we shapeshift to blend in.” 

"Well, no, but..." She wasn't actually looking at either of them, staring off into the grass thoughtfully with a hand curled around her chin. "Alfor's really the only one that needs to go out of his way to hide; it wouldn't take much to cover your identity, and I'm not anybody who'd draw attention - we could pretty easily pass off as some unaligned research crew if anybody asked." 

He stared at Honerva in slack-jawed betrayal; she was supposed to be the sensible one. "And that won't hold up well if they look up _anything at all_ to check identification!"

A small "I can cover that" came from Alfor's collar; Tila at least had the decency to sound resigned about it. 

Coran was outnumbered and not sure what else to appeal to if they were already starting to commit to it; talking Alfor out of stupid shenanigans was nearly impossible once he got too set on it, and Honerva was incredibly stubborn when she got going. Still, he had to try, at least enough to be able to say he HAD if they had to be rescued. "And if anything goes wrong?" 

"I'm sure we can think of something." Alfor was entirely too upbeat and Honerva did not look like she was considering arguing. 

There was one last avenue that might save them all. "And where are you going to get a ship?"

"I've got a few debts to call in." Alfor was almost preening, and Coran was certain he did not want to know. 

"And a pilot?" Coran knew he only had basic training on that, and Honerva wouldn't have had any; Alfor was supposed to, but he also had admitted to trying to get out of a lot of the training that would've been more related to hypothetical future military duties where he could. 

Alfor's smug turned more pointy. "I have top-five sim scores for the capitol and more flight time than the official logs show." 

Of course, he'd probably been sneaking out and 'borrowing' ships to get away from things. Coran buried his head in his hands, resigning himself to fate. "I'm not going to talk either of you out of this am I."

Barely over a varga later, they were in the hangar, Alfor changed out into the same ragged, obscuring mess that Coran now knew had been gathered for hanging around the black markets, and somehow he’d come up with similar clothing that roughly fit the other two on short enough notice that he had to've had it already set aside. That was the first thing Coran was trying not to think about, although it was hard not to ponder how it was that Alfor could have a complete lack of foresight about ways things could go wrong while still being prepared to bring the two of them along on his ill-advised schemes. 

The skiff was definitely Unilu, with suspicious amounts of concealable armament, and Coran found new depths of not wanting to know or ask how or why Alfor had managed to secure the loan of what had to be a small pirate skiff.

Not asking meant he had plausible deniability and could at least pretend he didn't know what it was. Honerva just seemed quietly impressed by it, and Coran blotted out every sense he'd ever had that she was the sensible one; she just wasn't as quick to come up with stupid suicidal ideas as Alfor was. 

Honerva gave a low whistle after walking around the ship, checking the external mechanisms and outer plating designs. "How did you manage to borrow this?"

He stared off into the open space past the barrier that marked the exit of the hangar. There went his plausible deniability, dissipated in the space now occupied by Alfor's ego.

"Calling in a couple of gambling debts. It's amazing how much you can manage off-record with a bit of barter and knowing your way around a deck of cards." Alfor at least mercifully left out who he'd been gambling _with_. 

The ship was small, but there were signs it was meant to be independent for at least a few days at a time, with storage cabinets, a small cargo hold that was empty, and benches set into the bulkheads in the main body. Alfor had insisted on getting some basic supplies on the way to the hangar, and Coran stowed the packaged food while Alfor did his pre-flight checks. He hated that packing for a few days was actually the more sensible option, because it was admitting that they'd probably need the entire break for this barring something going wrong. Honerva was securing the survey equipment, and Tila had her full drone along with a couple satellite camera and sensor drones; Honerva had insisted on bringing separate sensor arrays and a couple basic sensor drones of her own, just for comparison in case one of the drones had something calibrated off. 

Tila's fake ID setup got them past the dock controllers without an incident, and Coran did have to grant that Alfor had no problem bringing the skiff out of the hangar smoothly in spite of it being a foreign control scheme to an Altean ship and made for someone with two more hands than Alfor had. 

He chose to take it as a moment to be impressed at Alfor's ability to quickly adapt to unfamiliar systems, because that was easier on his sanity than the possibility Alfor had been around an Unilu ship's cockpit before. Alfor had spent a few extra ticks on the preflight checks as if going back over what all the controls were, at least, and he hoped that meant it wasn't familiar.

The trip out was uneventful. Coran tried to focus on reading for the flight, but it was hard to do when every odd beep from the ship's sensors had him tensing up half-expecting to hear they were being hailed by a patrol or that they'd crossed paths with a military vessel. He suddenly wished he'd paid more attention around his grandfather and some of the military and intelligence types that he ran with, because he did have a nagging memory of some recurring complaint about Dantalion Wayfinders and appearing out of nowhere in unexpected places, he just had never cared enough to really listen to much about them. 

It was a giant mess of horror stories he'd shuffled off mentally in irritation as a part of the Grand Family Inherited Responsibility he'd wanted no part of and grown tired of being foisted on him. Now he was quietly wishing they'd stayed distant ideas a little longer, instead of suddenly being faced with very real and immediate potential for firsthand introduction to it all. 

Honerva seemed to be fine, mostly concerned with checking and re-checking her instrument calibrations, and Alfor was occasionally humming cheerfully while monitoring the ship's sensors and route. He wasn't really surprised that Alfor was so calm about all of it, after some of what he'd realized Alfor was getting into on a regular basis. Most of the time it was hard not to like Alfor, he was finding; the Prince was stupidly earnest, an endless font of optimism, compassionate, and genuinely invested in everyone around him that hadn't gone out of their way to be antagonistic or abusive towards others, which only made his complete lack of self-preservation instinct and impulse control all the more nerve-wracking. 

He wasn't sure if it was a relief or just ratcheted up the tension when Alfor announced that they were approaching destination and about to make atmospheric entry; once they found and got close to one of the shrines, they'd be on foot, which would make fast exits a little more complicated and make it easier for anyone to cut off their escape by damaging the ship while it was a sitting target. 

The landing was level and neat, without anything inside the ship jarring. Tila had the satellite drones up before Alfor had even bounced to the hatch to open it and let down the ramp, Honerva hurrying to get her own sensor drones and equipment together. 

Coran helped carry, and was suddenly faced with another set of worries. They didn't have any weapons or defensive gear; at the same time, he wasn't sure any of them would've known much of how to navigate it. He was supposed to've been learning some weaponry and hand to hand, but besides some marksmanship, he had been trying to dodge out and avoid it; he knew from previous conversations that Alfor had been about as thrilled with it even if Alfor hadn't been able to avoid swordsmanship lessons, and Honerva had no reason to learn any of it. 

So, even if they'd had weapons available to them at the time, odds were they wouldn't have known what to do with them that well.

And even if they did, getting into a fight with Dantalion security details or one of their allies would draw all the wrong kinds of attention and get them beyond in trouble if they got identified at all. 

He was absorbed enough in fretting over what they'd even do if they did get confronted that it took him a minute to really register the area around the ship; Alfor had settled the skiff on a rocky outcropping on a hillside barely bigger than the ship, with a path leading away up the hill. He stopped partway down the path to stare back - as smooth as the landing had been, he definitely wasn't expecting to see the ship on a precarious perch like that.

Honerva was behind him, and the path was too narrow for her to go around; the expectant look he got cut short his moment of boggling over their landing, although he saw Alfor paused ahead and having a moment of puffing up proudly when he turned back. It only lasted a moment before Alfor was back to leading the way up the hillside, Tila and her satellites around him in a small flock. 

Between Alfor's little gaggle and Honerva's four sensor drones, they'd at least have everything well documented, although he wasn't sure if that was good or bad - it meant there'd be a clear record that they'd been sneaking around enemy territory later. Alfor didn't have any kind of helm or mask raised on the way up; Coran debated prodding him over it, but left it go for now - it'd be easy to turn on quickly if there was any sign of approach. 

The sky was clear, an amiable pale blue with a light, chill breeze; they were at least dealing with a habitable planet first found and mapped by a species with overlapping environmental needs, so there wasn't much need for envirosuits or similar baggage. It was life-bearing, but sparse in that region, with green mossy growths and stiff plates of mottled green-grey poking out of the rock. The area was quiet, with only distant occasional chirps from some kind of local wildlife.

At least it was quiet enough that any kind of engine would be obvious on approach, and the hillside was high enough to give a good view of the surrounding area, a wide span of rolling, rough green-grey.

He had to admit, in spite of himself, that it was nice to be out under a real sky, after a few phoebs on the station with artificial gravity and filtered, recycled atmosphere. Relaxing, in a way that had him forgetting occasionally that they were in enemy territory, only to jarringly come back to it now and then. It didn't look like there'd been much traffic in the area in a while, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be notice of a ship's signature heading somewhere out of the way instead of routing through one of the trade outposts. 

They reached the top of the hill with everything still peaceful and quiet, Tila's group of sensor drones spreading out around it in a chaotic circle trying to catch every odd angle and cranny while Honerva's followed a neater, pre-programmed pattern. The shrine had a towering central stone spire with five smaller ones spaced out around it, carved from the same rock as the hills. The five outer spires were covered in crystalline inlay forming a thick knot work; true to Alfor's comments, some of the basic outline of it was familiar, although there were more straight lines connected via sharp angles than he was used to seeing around the Altean capital, and no inlaid tracing of runes with names, prayers, and homages, either. There were, however, larger sigils around the tops of each pillar, and carved into the outside of the main shrine itself. 

There was a faint, blue-white light from inside the shrine, what would have to be a single small chamber since the monolithic shrine didn't have room for much more. 

"Definitely some kind of basic ambient quintessence focusing going on," Honerva observed, looking up at it from the edge of the hill with her personal computer's screen up already for readouts from the drones. She looked back to her screen, frowning at it. "Alfor, are you seeing anything - odd on your readings?"

Alfor didn't have his computer's screen up yet; he'd walked up to one of the pillars, holding a hand up to it, staring off through it with his eyes half-focused. "There's definitely more power running through this than just the visible structure would gather." 

Honerva sighed, noticing his distraction with a dim look, and muttered something about cheating with an eyeroll. Coran walked over to the shrine, leaning into the entrance; there was a central altar in the small room with an abstract glowing carved crystalline shape, and a narrow circular staircase winding down into the stone behind it. The crystalline shape connected to inlays that ran down the pedestal into the ground. 

Alfor stepped back from the pillar, shaking his head a little as he snapped out of his focus, and pulled up his screen. "...It definitely looks like the visible shrine is part of a larger structure built into the hillside." 

"Well, I would hope so, considering there's a staircase in here," Coran called back, stepping away from the door; he folded his arms, staring back at the other two expectantly. 

They both blinked at him, wide-eyed and caught in a moment of trying to act like they hadn't just forgotten the obvious. One of Tila's satellite drones floated down into the doorway; a second later two more had joined it, Tila's main drone hovering down by the doorway. 

"I can get you a basic map if you give me a minute - as long as there's no solid doors or anything in there, at least." The satellites vanished down the stairs, Tila's main drone staying by the door. 

Alfor and Honerva joined Coran by the door fast after, both leaning in to look themselves before stepping back to wait for the drones to finish mapping, Honerva shifting the shoulder-strap on the rest of her sensor equipment; the few other satellites were still flitting around the shrine and its pillars. 

Alfor lasted a couple moments into waiting before he shifted his weight, glancing around, and there was the odd sort of scanning surroundings Coran had learned to associate with him getting some kind of idea. Whatever it was, Alfor stepped over to stand beside Coran, waving to get Honerva's attention.

"Honerva, Coran - get a bit closer!"

Honerva took the couple steps to stand next to Coran, staring at Alfor sideways dubiously; Alfor just turned his attention up to Tila's main drone. "Can you get a picture?" 

Coran's jaw dropped; they were in enemy territory on a trip they should not have been on, and Alfor was getting a picture of all of them.

Tila chirped, "Sure!", hovered up a little further to get a better angle, and Coran stared at the drone helplessly as the lens clicked a couple of times. 

"Was that _really_ a good idea?" He turned to stare at Alfor incredulously. 

"Why not? It's not like anybody's going to get at Tila's records." Alfor gave him a lopsided grin. 

"It would be the most secure place for something like that." Honerva was actually smiling a little next to him. 

He gave the AI drone another helpless look, and Tila just offered a sort of noncommittal mechanical hum in response; he wanted to protest more, but it was hard to argue with Alfor's enthusiasm sometimes, and it _would_ at least be incredibly difficult to get files from a sapient hybrid AI that didn't want to share. 

Coran sighed, and shifted a little before wandering around the pillars, getting another look at the area around the shrine and the view; it was partly to make sure the area was still clear with no sign of anyone else approaching, but after a minute it just turned into appreciating the fresh air and the scenery. As rough-hewn as the hills were, they were a lot gentler than the sharp mountains and valleys around the Altean capital, a rolling landscape that had occasional splashes of color from some kind of other vegetation here and there, too far off to make out any details. 

He hadn't travelled much before; he'd seen plenty of videos and images and occasional hologram projections of different places, on Altea and off, but when he'd left he capital, it had been to part of the outer artificial rings or nearby stations. 

As much as he still wanted to get after Alfor for it, and couldn't banish the tension that came from being in enemy territory, there was something oddly freeing about standing on some alien world, almost a galaxy away from Altea, for no other reason than that there was something interesting there; no actual looming responsibility or expectations about what they were supposed to be doing there.

Well, besides not getting caught. 

"Alright, I've got most of the map down!", Tila called out behind him; he turned back to jog over to the others by the entrance, where Alfor was already pulling open the screen from his computer larger so that it'd be visible. "There's actually other entrances lower in the hillside that weren't easily visible from orbit - it's got an entire complex down there, mostly pretty open. I'll send you two the map, too."

There were a handful of other chambers laid out in rings around a central staircase that spiraled down, the entire thing built around the power system running through the shrine.  
Once there were the chirps from Honerva and Coran's computers for the message received, Alfor dismissed the screen, straightening his costume. "Well then, before we go exploring, I should probably go make sure we're not unwelcome." Alfor walked forward between them to the central altar, holding a hand out to the carved the crystal. 

Honerva folded her arms, rocking her weight back on her heels while they waited; the blue-white glow from the crystal brightened a couple times, pulsing faintly, and there was a noticeable charge to the area - a sort of faint energy that made the air feel both thicker and more clear, enough to set Coran a little more jittery in the sense of feeling like he should've been moving while simultaneously less nervous, gently rounding edges on the paranoid tension he'd had the entire way in.

Alfor lowered his hand, stepping back and turning back to them, smiling brightly. "Alright, we're all clear. It's been a while since there's been more than an occasional Salaxian on a pilgrimage passing through here." He motioned for them to follow, turning to head down the stairs with Tila hovering just behind him.

Coran followed after, pausing at the altar to awkwardly bow his head and hold a hand out to it; he didn't actually know how it was supposed to work, leaving him fumbling at Thinking "sorry to trespass thank you for letting us in" Very Hard, trying to send a little bit of energy in offering and hoping whatever was around would hear it and not be too put out at having weird alien strangers visiting. 

There was a pulse of light from the crystal, and an odd warm feeling from it; he blinked at it, and adjusted the collar of his coat, giving it a little bow before he hurried after Alfor. He barely caught sight of Honerva pausing by it awkwardly, giving it a slight wave before she followed after, glancing back at it occasionally until it was out of sight. 

The only light in the lower levels came from the crystal inlays in the wall that ran in patterns all through the shrine complex, a soft blue-white glow that cast odd little flickering patterns out from it in the dim. Some of them ran over the ceilings and floor as well, and Coran self-consciously kept glancing at his feet to avoid stepping on them even while he was trying to get pictures. Tila had lights running along the outside of her chassis from her sensor arrays, and Honerva had switched to a hand scanner, holding it out to scan the walls and floor as they walked. 

It wasn't a good idea to split up in there; Coran pondered on that after he found himself in one of the side chambers by himself. The entire shrine was heavy stone, and sound didn't carry through it well at all - he could barely hear Alfor's footsteps vanishing in the hallway while he was getting a few better pictures of some of the inlays.

At least Tila had left him access to the video from the satellite drones, which were circling the main shrine above; the side entrances weren't easy to see from the outside or above, and anyone approaching would probably be pretty visible anyway, with the view from the hilltop. 

He didn't pay attention to the clock to notice that the gaps between his check of the cameras were getting wider as he grew more absorbed in the way the inlays carried power through the walls, focusing the ambient background energy of the hills into something gathered and alive. 

He was kneeling down to get a better look at some carvings running in between some of the patterns, taking pictures that they could compare to translation programs later; he half hoped it would be something that might give some insight into their design philosophy, but it was just as likely to be some kind of prayer or invocation of the elements. It wasn't really his field, but the underpinnings of it related to things he did work with enough that it was kind of fascinating - a different angle on things that had the edges of ideas starting to form.  
And then the wristband for his computer chirped and buzzed against his wrist. 

The screen came up as soon as he raised his wrist, the alert automatically opening one of the outside drone displays, Tila's voice quiet from the earpiece communicator. "I just noticed something funny in one of the recordings from a little while ago." The AI sounded unsure and wary; the video was winding to a specific time point, playing back slowed down.

Something darted between hills below, a little too big, and it looked like it was intentionally using the terrain for cover to be out of line of sight from the hilltop - the lines were a little too angular to be natural, it had to be a small vehicle.

"Oh, quiznak." 

He closed the screen and stood, halfway through raising his hand to his earpiece to call the other two when he saw the figure in the doorway, and the thin-bladed spear leveled at him.  
It was light armor with a helm, faceplate covering any features, but he recognized the basic design; he knew it wasn't right for a Wayfinder at least, thank the ancestors, but it was definitely Dantalion in design, and he realized he had no idea how to read any insignia or design patterns to tell what they _had_ run into, because he hadn't paid enough attention when they'd tried to teach him any of that; he didn't think he'd ever actually see one of them.

He raised his hands open and empty, trying not to focus on the spearpoint. 

"What are three Alteans doing trespassing here?", the figure demanded; there was just enough voice modulation that he couldn't tell much about it, not that anything would've really helped. 

Apparently they had a biosignature scanner.

They had a cover story. He just had to run with the cover story. "We're an independent group that was just out doing some survey research on traditional religious sites." 

From the stiff sort of pause, he didn't think they were buying it. "With an Unilu raider skiff?"

He was going to drown Alfor. "Well, we're not very well funded, you see, and our field team leader kind of." As long as he left out that said 'field team leader' was a _Prince_.... "Won it gambling."

The truth, as ridiculous as it was, was still probably less ridiculous than any lie he could think of.

"...You won an armed raiding skiff gambling." 

Definitely unimpressed. 

"I know it sounds stupid. Believe me, I _know_ it sounds stupid." He gave them his best, most honest look of frazzled despair. 

There was an inhale and shift of weight, but before they could actually say anything, there was a loud clatter of hurried footsteps running that way in the hallway. "CORAN, HONERVA, WE'VE GOT-"

He heard Alfor's footsteps scrabble to a stop as the armored Dantalion turned fast, the spear aimed into the hallway with a definite bristle, tensing to move. Alfor at least had his helm and faceplate up, a modulator breaking up his voice just enough to hopefully throw off identification, but his 'costume' was basically just salvaged bits of cloth draped around a spacesuit, with no real armor to it. 

He knew Alfor was unarmed and completely off-guard.

In a moment of sheer unthinking panic, he acted, diving at the armored figure in a tackle that caught them off guard, wrapping his arms around their chest desperately just before they hit the far wall of the hallway. At first, it seemed to work, the wind going out of them with an ungainly squawk, the spear clattering to the ground.

Then an armored elbow connected with the side of his face at the same time as a knee was brought up hard in his stomach. 

Before much else registered but his vision flashing funny, he was on the ground gasping to catch his breath again; the spear was on the ground in between them and Alfor, slightly closer to Alfor.

Both of them looked down at the spear, and at each other.

The Dantalion dove for it while Alfor was still staring at them dumbly, and Coran scrabbled to an off-balance attempt at regaining his feet fueled by complete panic. 

They lunged at Alfor; Alfor side-stepped flat against the wall, grabbing the spear shaft as it went by and hung on, planting his feet solid.

The spear's momentum stopped dead, and the armored figure tried to yank back, but the spear may as well have been set in stone for all that it moved; they glanced between it and Alfor in confusion, giving it another attempted, useless yank. 

Alfor levered the spear hard, lifting them off their feet and slamming them into the other wall, getting a startled, pitchy squawk of alarm out of them. He let go of the spear, it and its owner clattering to the ground in a heap, and Alfor only hesitated long enough to shoo Coran past him; Coran ran for the stairs up, and Alfor followed hard on his heels. 

They weren't down long enough, and Coran could hear them get to their feet and start pursuit with a few hissed curses. Honerva was in the hallway on the next level, peering out the door of one of the rooms to squint at them indignantly. "What in Wozblay is going-"

Before they reached her, her eyes widened at something behind them, and she took off at a sprint ahead of them, somehow managing to hurriedly tap out a follow command for her sensor drones into her computer as she ran. 

They didn't stop for anything, heading back to the ship at a dead sprint with the drones forming up close to them fast, Tila falling in a little ahead of Honerva. Coran discovered that they were, in fact, capable of outrunning a determined, combat-trained, angrily swearing Dantalion when there was a spear behind them for motivation; he wasn't bringing up the rear by much, and they didn't stop until they hit the inside of the ship, Coran hitting the emergency closure button on the hatch as he lunged up into the skiff. 

He wasn't sure which God or Ancestor to thank that the skiff hadn't been tampered with; the outside cameras showed their pursuer skid to a halt as the hatch closed, diving to flatten behind part of the rocks.

If they recognized the skiff as armed, then they were probably expecting to get fired on, which would buy them a little bit of time, maybe - 

Except there were good odds that if they hadn't already called for backup, they would be doing it now, which would mean fighter craft. 

The skiff lurched sideways off the hillside, lift starting up before it'd even gotten clear of the ledge it'd been perched on, and Alfor swung it up to leave in a hurry; Coran clung onto a bar by one of the benches and Honerva found a part of the side paneling to hang onto, neither of them about to argue with Alfor being in too much of a hurry to give them time to get secured properly. 

From what Coran could see of the ship's sensors from where he was, there wasn't anything in the immediate area but a small hover bike, although that was trying doggedly to tail them a few ticks after they'd angled to escape and it became clear they had no intention of opening fire. There were a couple other signatures incoming as they broke atmosphere, and Alfor pushed the little skiff to the limit of what its engines could manage to buy enough room to drop it into a short hyperspace jump, the alarms already going off that there were target locks forming.

As soon as they were safely out of normal space, Coran sank into the bench, sprawling. Honerva took a couple deep breaths before she pulled her hands off the paneling, sitting down heavily across from him; the drones that had been trying to maintain position in the middle of the skiff in a cloud settled to land in a lopsided flock in the middle of the floor, only Tila's main drone staying airborne. 

Coran draped an arm over his face with a groan. "We're never doing this again." 

Nobody argued.

The skiff was quiet for a short interval, save for quiet noises from Honerva's computer. 

"Well...it looks like we got decent readings out of this, at least." 

Coran groaned again; he was never trusting her to be the voice of reason ever again, even if she did sound like she was trying to find a bright side to it all. 

"You know, that poor trainee's report isn't going to make any sense at all," Tila quipped. "I think they were probably as scared of us as we were of them."

Alfor turned in the pilot's seat and Coran half-sat up, all three of the Alteans staring at the little drone.

"Trainee?", Alfor asked, while Coran was just rubbing the bruise forming just behind his eye on one side where he'd been elbowed. 

"Yeah, I checked the armor configuration. That was a trainee Wayfinder, probably doing practice patrols, since that really is a planet that's not likely to have much happen." 

Coran fell back onto the bench, draping his arm over his face again with a whine. "Quiznaking godforsaken _trainee_. Of Course we'd still find one of them. Of course we would. Scared of us as we were of them, they had a bloody _spear_ that can't have been any less sharp, it’s the grace of the Ancestors we didn't all end up skewers..." 

Coran's occasional litanies of complaints aside, and Alfor's too-chipper reminders that they'd gotten out unharmed, the rest of the trip back to the station was uneventful; Alfor led a roundabout route through alleys and less-traveled back paths to the dorm buildings, checking briefly that Honerva was confident she could dodge the security drones that checked the halls after curfew by herself before they split up.

Coran's nerves were still running high after the door of their dorm shut and he and Alfor dropped their bundles of instruments, supplies, and extra drones, Tila settling into her dock on the shelf; the trainee had a biosignature scanner, they'd known the trio was Altean, Alfor had yelled their names in panic, he was half expecting to get a call any minute calling them on the carpet for trespassing that would definitely be a diplomatic incident.

Coran leaned back against the door, thumping the back of his head against it a couple times while Alfor was putting everything away as if nothing had happened.

"I told you that as an awful idea - sneaking into enemy territory like that," he grumbled.

Alfor shrugged with a quiet "Enh", sliding the case with the satellite drones under his bed. "I thought there wasn't anything out there we couldn't handle getting away from."

"You were thinking of normal security patrols that didn't have biosignature scanners - that trainee knew we were all Altean!" 

Alfor shrugged. "Even if they recorded everything, it's all pretty nonsensical; there's not anything to lead them back here - and there's Alteans among some of the raider crews and sketchier exploration groups. They'll probably just chalk it up to some stray pirates out treasure hunting." 

He couldn't actually argue with Alfor's logic, as much as he wanted to; he glared at Alfor with a strangled noise, thumping his head back against the door one more time for good measure, and then took a couple measured breaths, counting to himself to try and do something about the knot in his stomach that was entirely unrelated to the other nasty bruise he doubtless had by now, trying to dial the lingering panic down to simmering frustration.

Alfor stopped before he turned back to unpack the rest of the supplies, an odd pause as the rush of danger began to pass, and he turned to Coran, suddenly much less sure of himself with clear concern and guilt on his face. "Are you alright? I should've checked before, I just got carried away with all the chaos..."

Coran blinked, a hand going to the bruise on the side of his face. "I... think so?" He felt along the spot just below his ribcage where he'd gotten kneed; both of the new bruises were sore and tender, definitely, but didn't feel like anything was broken or badly amiss. "I think I surprised them." 

"Are you sure?" Alfor paused, looking away at the floor. "If you need to, I'm sure I can come up with a story for the infirmary; we could always just make up a bar fight off campus or something, they see that kind of thing now and then..." Alfor folded his arms and shrank in. "...You were probably right - if we hadn't been lucky and I hadn't distracted them when I did...I-" The prince stopped, swallowing hard and looking up. "I'm sorry I put you two in danger like that - I hadn't really had anyone going with me before when I did things like that - I mean, it would've been entirely my fault if something had happened to either of you." 

The frustration tripped, and Coran wasn't quite sure what to do with this. He propped a foot up against the door, crossing his arms, suddenly awkward. "...Well, I did go along with it. I could've stayed on campus and just let you two go by yourselves." 

It was a lie and he knew it - he would've made it three steps away and turned right back to follow them, and if something had happened to them out there, he never would've forgiven himself for not being there to help. 

"I didn't really give you much choice - I can only imagine how much trouble you would've been in if you had let me go do something like that by myself." 

Alfor's voice had fallen, the distress genuine, but Coran felt a spike of blind anger, not even pinning down why at first. "Don't you even-" He pushed away from the door, taking a step into the room to jab the air angrily with one finger, and Alfor blinked up startled, taking a half-step back. "Don't you even _try_ to say I did that because of some kind of 'orders'! Do you really think I've spent all of these years trying to get _away_ from everything my grandfather keeps telling me is my Due Inheritance just to - let that decide what I do with myself now that I have a chance to make my own decisions?!" His voice was cracking occasionally, going all off-kilter and pitchy. 

He swallowed, the anger and frustration settling into a direction now that he'd found its mark, the angry pointing shifting into more frantic waving making periodic punctuation. "I went with you on that - absolute dumbassery because _I wanted to_ , because - because however stupid it was, I'd never be able to live with _myself_ if something happened to you and I wasn't there, because - maybe I _want_ to stop hanging around where I'm 'supposed to be' even if I don't have the slightest clue where to start, and - and-" He forced a deep breath, only half an idea where any of it was going, figuring it out as he blurted things out. "Maybe you're the first person that's actually _understood_ any of what I've been going through, that - gets how awful it is to just live in a tiny little planned-out maze with everyone telling you what to be and how to be it and how you've got some kind of Grand Destiny whether you want it or not and _exactly_ how it _has_ to work, and - I don't want to _lose_ that because you went off doing something _stupid_ trying to get yourself killed while I just hid out right were I was 'supposed' to be!" 

He stood by the door, trying to find an even breath again; even with it all tumbling out in words, it was still a messy tangle knotted in his chest like a lump bigger than the bruise on his stomach, a snarl of loose threads and raw jagged edges he wasn't sure how to start untangling.

Alfor stared at him, not moving, looking both relieved and halfway to tears. A few times the prince looked like he was about to say something, and his jaw worked a little fumbling for words, before he just lurched forward to throw his arms around Coran, burying his face in Coran's shoulder.

Coran froze, the lump moving up into his throat, and finally awkwardly moved to pat Alfor's shoulder; it occurred to him that the prince had probably been under even more pressure than he had all this time, between having the rare level of power that went with Altean royalty and being the one in direct bloodline to the current royals. Even if he didn't pass ordeal to succeed his father, he'd be expected to keep some kind of position of authority, probably either a diplomatic position or a military one, maybe priesthood, with few other options that didn't involve committing major crimes or getting himself exiled in disgrace. 

If Coran somehow wormed out of taking the traditional family post attending the royal family, he could probably land a good spot as an engineer; his grandfather would be disappointed and unhappy, and there'd be scandal, but it was a possibility. 

He could see Alfor taking well to diplomatic work; Alfor did have a fascination for other cultures and civilizations, along with a genuine love of people that would probably not only work well but make it less of a chore. Still, it was hard not to remember how Alfor lit up whenever he had a chance to talk about what he was studying or things he wanted to research - and it was a near certainty that research and the pursuit of knowledge would always be a strange secondary hobby to anything he had to do with his life. The time on campus here might very well be Alfor's first, last, and only chance to have real freedom in what he was doing with himself.

He went from awkward shoulder pats to a loose hug. It was hard not to feel a little guilty now for how irritated he'd been to get "stuck" with Alfor, when there were probably not very many people Alfor got to deal with that weren't either reminding him of how much of his life was out of his hands, or oblivious to what it was like being in that position.

It was a while before Alfor let go and stopped leaning on Coran, and they both awkwardly shuffled to sit on their respective beds on either side of the room; the high of getting away from danger was finally fully gone, leaving Coran tired and a little achey, and Alfor seemed to be flagging just as much as everything caught up. 

It felt like something had resolved, even if Coran wasn't sure what, leaving everything free for dumber questions. 

"Did Tila not tell you she'd sent that to -..." He paused; something wasn't right - Honerva hadn't known what was going on, which meant Tila hadn't sent it to Honerva. He squinted at the drone in its dock. "Who did you send that warning to?"

"Just you first, since you were the one closest to the lower entrances - then Alfor was already running and I kinda got distracted trying to get into the ship's sensors to make sure there wasn't anything else coming," the drone said, half-apologetic.

Coran turned his confused squint to Alfor. "How did _you_ know we'd been found?"

"The shrine told me," Alfor said earnestly, as if it was somehow obvious. "It wasn't really a warning, just kind of an, 'oh, one of the local protectors is here'; organic living people all look similar to land spirits like that beyond 'familiar' and 'not familiar', and not all of them register politics, either, so most of them don't care who you are as long as you're respectful and not causing trouble." He shrugged. "It's only big ones that have regular communication with a population that get invested in that kind of thing, like the god-spirits back on Altea...and even those don't always care much, or care about it the way we would." 

"I see." It did make a weird sense to what Coran remembered of Altean history, although he'd sort of skimmed through that, getting fascinated with certain time periods and figures and not really bothering to care about others. Hypothetically most Alteans were able to communicate with beings like that on a basic level, even if it took a certain degree of power to get any real nuance or clarity out of it; in practice, outside of royalty, nobility, priesthood, and those with the power and training that needed to deal with that kind of thing, it was pretty common to not get more than minor exposure to it. 

Coran's only personal interaction with spirits and gods was basic, brief moments around some holidays where he was one of a number of people stopping for a couple moments at a shrine in an old routine, and the once or twice around landmarks when he'd been 'introduced' to some of the shrines and structures around the central palace as part of his family. 

The shrine back on the tiny hill was the first time he hadn't either been following rote directions with something that expected to have a lot of people coming by paying respects, or coached and fussed at to go make contact with something big enough to be overwhelming. 

At least he could say that the bigger powers around Altea had seemed vaguely sympathetic when they'd noticed how much he didn't want to be there, or at least he thought they had been; it probably would've been obvious if they'd been angry with him.

As far as Altean politics and history went, he knew there'd been at least three very confused near-bloodless coups in different nations coming from some outsider presenting themselves to the bigger powers a country worked with and being accepted with the spirits backing them as a leader, leaving the people and respective squishy organic governments to figure out what to do with it from there. 

When they'd ended up hashing out some kind of central government after the planet became ridiculously smaller thanks to interstellar travel, after much squabbling and political idiocy, they'd finally just lapsed into using those coups as a suggestion, letting the powers that acted as patrons for all the major regions weigh in on royal succession.

It was a little weird to have Alfor be so offhand and matter-of-fact about something that'd been history and reverent political-religious theory Over That Way for so long for him, an academic part of Altean culture that he'd never really had much connection to. 

With Alfor's power it was probably daily life for him.

"Well, it did help, at least. I think," he finally continued, after realizing that he'd gotten lost in thought through an awkward, tired silence; Alfor had taken the time to change into a loose nightshirt, leaving his clothes in a haphazard pile on the floor next to the bed.

Alfor shrugged, and flopped back on his bed with his hands folded behind his head. "To be honest, the spirits and all are usually easier to deal with than the people back home. They don't really care about a lot of things everyone makes a big deal about, although I'm not really sure what they're going to make of me outside of dropping by when it's my turn to pay respects and go through old rituals."

There was something a little nervous about the humor in Alfor's voice, a lop-sided smile that seemed fake, but Coran wasn't sure what to do other than just listen, resting his hands on either side of him to lean tiredly on the bed. Everything trailed off into silence again, and Coran finally tugged off his own shirt, staring at it and the drawers before just dropping it on the floor as a problem for his tomorrow self. The bruise on his stomach was a rather spectacular black-blue, yellowed around the edges, and he winced a little poking at it.

There was a flicker from the corner of his eye as Alfor flinched with a guilty grimace that he covered over with staring at the ceiling as soon as Coran looked up. 

Coran probably should've gotten his own nightshirt, but it was in one of the drawers, and that was a lot of effort right now; he shuffled his pants onto the floor and wormed under the blankets.

Tila turned the lights off without either of them needing to say anything, the room darker; Alfor was still staring aimlessly at the ceiling.

"You know - there's only one other person I know that... gets it." Alfor's voice was quiet, pensive, with occasional awkward pauses. "Just - he's got it worse than I do, even, and I don't see him very often at all, or for very long when I do... so - it does. Mean something, having you here like this." 

Coran nodded into the blankets, even as he had wonder who Alfor would even know that had a 'worse' situation that way than he did - as far as Coran knew, while there were a number of other royals both on Altea and off who were in line for succession, Alfor and the lead candidate for the Queen's position would be the ones under the most pressure.

"If things don't work out well..."

Alfor trailed off at first, and Coran shifted to look over, half sitting up. 

"We could probably both sneak out, you know. Throw in with one of the unaligned crews on the fringes somewhere and go exploring. It's not like there's many people that'd know to look for us out that way - the only other person that knows I go out messing with the Unilu and some of the other sketchy groups is Honerva, and I doubt she'd say anything if we did."

He almost thought to argue, but Alfor was probably right; they probably could slip off and get away with it. It probably should've been freeing, to realize that they didn't actually need to go through with the lives everyone else had set out for them, but right now Coran found it more terrifying than anything, and as much as he hated to admit it, when he thought about it seriously, he wasn't sure he actually wanted to leave Altea and everything he knew behind.

Even if he also wasn't sure what to do with everything stacked up that was expected of him.

"Maybe, if things don't work out," he answered tiredly. 

The next morning, Alfor insisted on finding Honerva on campus, still rattling some with worry after it’d sank in how close of a call they’d had. 

They found Honerva in a high balcony table in one of the student union buildings, a little platform that barely fit one table with a few chairs and overlooked most of the small restaurants and sitting areas. She had a sprawl of five or six different screens open, going between them intently enough that Coran wasn’t sure she’d even noticed them; Alfor didn’t seem sure either, paused in a moment of debating how to get her attention, as Tila slid out onto his shoulder where she was visible.

She beat him to it, addressing them without looking away from her computer screens. “Have you had a chance to go over the readings yet? I think we only scratched the surface - that wasn’t just one power point, it was a node in some kind of larger network!”

Alfor’s mouth hung open for a moment. “I haven’t, no.” He glanced back to Coran uncertainly, and Coran just shrugged; he wasn’t sure what to make of it either. “I uh. Wanted to apologize for not thinking that over more, since we may have just made ourselves targets of a hostile power.”

Honerva did glance up briefly. “Has there been any signs of them investigating around campus?”

Alfor gave Coran another glance. Coran shook his head - he had no idea how to even tell if they were getting investigated. Alfor gave the next questioning look to Tila on his shoulder, and the tiny drone turned on her legs for a moment before speaking up. “I haven’t picked up on anything? Not that I’d really know, I have no way of keeping track of their communications in this area.” 

She raised an eyebrow at Alfor with a faintly despairing look. “Well, if they were going to track us, they’d probably be aiming for the ship first. Have your ‘friends’ said anything?” 

Alfor blanched, the moment of dawning realization hitting him - and Coran added another tally to the things to worry about; he didn’t think the pirates Alfor had been hanging around would take him being ‘entertaining’ and winning at cards as worth drawing the direct attention of the Dantalion elite. 

“No, I haven’t heard anything from them since I handed the ship back over.” 

Honerva gave a half-nod, attention returning to her computer screens. “Then they’re probably not chasing us very hard, since they wouldn’t have many reasons to worry about confronting pirates.” 

Coran still found it hard to not worry, but he couldn’t fault her logic there. He nudged Alfor with an elbow; Alfor still looked like a ball of overwound springs. “Well, that’s something, right?”

Alfor almost startled at the contact, but nodded, shifting weight and fussing stray hairs out of his face. “I still wanted to apologize for putting you at risk like that.”

She looked up again with an eyebrow raised. “Are you kidding? With the data we got from that? I’ve got enough to track comparisons and use for some of my own research for phoebs, at least! If anything, I should be thanking you for having the idea.” She paused, running a finger along the top of her mug. “And you can remind me of this the next time there’s a debate about your social sciences contributing to other research, too.”

Alfor was staring, blank and flabbergasted. 

Coran just snorted - he was the one who was usually stuck breaking those ‘debates’ up. “If he doesn’t, I will, believe me.” 

With Alfor still trying to re-orient, Coran settled at the table, pulling up a couple screens of his own; their research there was only tenuously related to anything he worked on, but he was familiar enough with it to help organize and cross-reference what they’d collected. After a couple doboshes, Alfor caught up enough to shrug off his confusion and his own bit of guilt, taking a chair of his own to start cross-referencing it to data from Altean colony worlds. 

Even with Honerva’s assurance that things were probably fine, Coran couldn’t help but worry that they’d do something more subtle than confront the pirates. He braced himself in the quintents after for them to get identified and called out for it, but that never came.

Both he and Alfor did, however, get calls from their respective families warning them to be careful, with baffled reports that the Dantalion military had diverted a small band of their forces to increase patrols in that area of space “for no reason we can find”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Trigel will be back, and sooner than Coran and Alfor ever wanted.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A coming vacation turns into getting drug back to Altean affairs, as Coran and Alfor get drug off their break to make an appearance at a diplomatic conference.
> 
> Trigel is not amused.

**Journal: 06-25-3014.34**   
_The more I get drug around by Alfor or one of the others, the more it hits me just how different it is being here compared to being on Altea. The places outside of campus are still too noisy for my tastes and make me question Alfor’s sanity, but we often just vanish into the crowd. Occasionally another Altean will recognize Alfor as royalty, but there aren’t many Alteans out this far, and they don’t even notice Honerva and I._

_It’s fairly often not just the three of us, too; there’s only a handful that I see often, luckily. We’ve apparently got a reputation for being among the best in our classes._

_There’s a longer break coming up. None of us have made any arrangements to go back to Altea. Grandfather’s barely been responding to messages and doesn’t seem to have noticed yet that I have no arrangements; hopefully I can squeeze past with little comment. Alfor is supposed to be existing as self-sufficiently as possible for a few decaphoebs anyway, so nobody from home has questioned his lack of plans; his father has his hands full with the war, anyway. Honerva didn’t seem to have thought much about it; I don’t think she has much of a relationship with whatever family she has._

_I’m honestly looking forward to having time off without needing to go back._

 

They met at one of the places just off campus after everything let out - the last session of classes before a break.  

Coran was ready to celebrate another break without any need to go back to Altea, then Honerva met up with them a little late and he felt the dread starting to form. Alfor and Honerva were already off back and forth about things they could accomplish with more free access to the workrooms, labs, and library, and Coran realized it was probably only a matter of time before the same thing happened that’d happened on the shorter break.

One time going out helping them take readings, pictures, and an unreasonable amount of documentation of a technically illegal trip into hostile territory was enough for Coran’s nerves and sanity.

Neither of them seemed suspicious of him encouraging various projects that would take time staying on campus, at least, and it was starting to seem like the break would be mostly peaceful, assuming they didn’t manage to blow anything up.

The conversation was interrupted by a quiet, barely audible “Oh, _quiznak_ ” from Tila’s more concealable drone somewhere in Alfor’s collar right before Alfor’s expression went into the special kind of awkward confused twitch at an incoming call tone he hadn’t wanted to hear.   Alfor ducked into his collar and shrank back from the table a little, voice dropping, although Coran and Honerva could hear his side of the conversation just fine. 

“What - really?   Well no, that’s wonderful news -,” Alfor paused, frowning for a moment.   “Well, alright, news, but it’s _something_ -” There was another pause as Alfor listened to the other end with a nod and a sudden expression of distress that didn’t fade as fast.   “Are you sure? I don’t actually have any authority, it’s not like I’d be doing anything useful…” Whatever was going on, Alfor shrank further into the chair with a defeated look of resignation.   “No, I understand. I’ll be ready.” 

There were a few ticks of silence, Alfor staring off into space at the wall, Honerva and Coran both unsure if they should ask or wait for Alfor to say something.

Then Coran’s own device on his wrist had the small chime of an incoming message; he had a sinking feeling even before he brought up the screen to check it as to where it might come from after whatever call Alfor had gotten.   

It was from his grandfather.

 

Of course.   He glared at the screen, wrinkling his nose; Honerva was now watching both of them with an uncertain raised eyebrow.   

  They’d been getting along, sure, but he wasn’t going to say that there, not when them getting along was partly solidarity in both of them wanting to get away from the excessive controls on their lives and looming expectations hanging over their heads.   

 

He looked up from the screen to the table, where Honerva was looking between them uneasily, Alfor still hunched over sulking and staring off into space.   After a beat, Alfor did a halfhearted glance his direction. “You too, eh?”

Coran sighed and nodded.   At least he wouldn’t be alone in Not Wanting To Be There.   

, he tapped back.   There was a set of other messages waiting, alerts about when they were going to be picked up and travel times.   

Honerva looked between the two of them with an eyebrow raised, waiting for some kind of explanation.   

They had a stare down that somehow ended with Alfor cracking first, leaning heavily on the table with a dramatic sigh.   "There's some kind of big diplomatic conference. It's over the break, so we're both being required to go. Something about a shared show of good faith on neutral territory."

There was equal parts relief and pity as she edged her chair back, just slightly.   "Well... good luck with the politics, I guess? Don't die?"

"We'll try," Coran grumbled, draping back across his chair in his own bit of melodrama.

"It's alright, Honerva, you can say it," Alfor added, sinking down to bury his head in folded arms on the table.   

She paused, and pushed her food around in the bowl with the spoon.   "...I am so glad that I don't have to deal with any of that. Seeing you two has just made me more sure that I want to see if I can go my entire life without getting involved in politics."   

"Believe me, I wish I could join you."   Coran somehow managed to sink a little further into his chair.

She gave both of them another uncertain look.   "...Is there anything you want me to get for you while you're still here?"

"No.   I think we've got everything," Alfor answered, morose.

"Right then."   She poked her food again; there wasn't much left, and it was a disposable bowl that she could easily leave with.   "I... think I might leave you guys to that." She picked it up, taking a short half-step out of her chair. "Call me if you do need anything?   I mean, besides me going with you. No offense, but .... no." 

"That's fine."   Alfor made a very half-hearted dismissing motion with one hand.   "I'd rather not drag you into this too - go, save yourself while you still can."

"Alright."   She looked between them one last time, then backed up.   "I'll see you when you get back." With that, she turned and hurried off, leaving the two of them alone at the table.

There was silence over the table for a while, as they both just stayed put, Coran draped over his chair and Alfor flopped over on the table, staring off across it. 

"Say, Coran."   

He shifted enough to look across at the table at Alfor, who was still flattened.

"If you want, while we're there, I can do the talking.   I know you get frustrated enough sometimes just dealing with other students here."

Coran stared, not sure how to react; the whole thing was a trial for Alfor, too, and while he knew Alfor was better with people, he hadn't expected that.   "Are you sure?" 

"Absolutely."   Alfor pulled up, sitting.   "I think I can at least find the less awful corners of things, too, when we get any freedom to move around - and you know, I don't think anybody will really question if you're tailing me around, it might even get your family leaving you alone for a while."   He leaned back, looking off sideways self-consciously. "...And it means I'll have someone to talk to as an excuse to step out of things, too." 

Coran raised an eyebrow, seeing the plot already.   "Needing to 'talk things over with your advisor-to-be'?"   

"Exactly."

It would, at least, mean a less miserable trip than the other times Coran had been drug around diplomatic affairs on the outlying stations.

They could only linger so long away from their rooms trying to stall; there wasn't a huge amount of notice, which meant it was probably whoever had managed to negotiate the talks dragging everyone together before anybody had time to get second thoughts and decide they weren't actually interested in it.   Coran caught Alfor almost reflexively packing some of his satellite sensor drones and research equipment at least three times.

He did notice that the drawer Alfor hid most of the things he used when he was sneaking off pretending to not be the Altean Prince was suspiciously almost-empty before they were done getting as much packed for the trip back the next day as they could.   

Somewhere in the middle of checking back over and making sure anything that might be suspicious was out of sight, Alfor floated a question Coran's direction.

"So the ship coming to get us is going to rendezvous with the Castle not far from here."   The monolithic capital ship almost didn't need much else of a name; Coran gave a noise acknowledging.   

"You know I haven't been on the castle in ... decaphoebs, at least," Alfor continued.   "What's it like lately?"

Coran realized that had to be true - he had only ever met Alfor in passing, briefly, long enough ago that he hadn't recognized him at all here, and Coran had been on the ship a decent amount of the time.   "Well, you know. It's the Castle. Busy with a lot of people. I stayed in my room a lot." He shrugged; he'd been trying to avoid everyone else more and more. 

"I heard the Princess who's one of the lead candidates for Ordeal has been there in between being sent away for her training."   

Coran froze.   He knew there were things he was trying to not remember.

Alfor had looked over his shoulder at that.   "Is she that bad now? I only met her a couple times when I was younger, mostly not for very long."   

Coran cringed, opening his mouth, but... "Well - kind of?   I." It wasn't that she was a bad person, exactly, and they'd gotten along occasionally... "She takes her responsibilities very seriously."   That was the root of their conflict in more recent years when she'd been on the Castle; Coran was trying to get away from his, and there'd been a couple vicious arguments over it where he'd mostly just been trying to get her to go away and had started blurting out whatever seemed like it would work for that.

And he wasn't sure how he felt about trying to explain those arguments to Alfor; as much as Alfor sulked and could snipe and be willing to chime in on revenge when it fit his sense of justice, he'd never seen Alfor lash out at anyone that wasn't pushing pretty hard or picking on someone else.  In fact, Alfor seemed to put a lot of effort into at least trying to treat everyone well as much as he could. 

He knew he probably would've snapped harder at Alfor when they'd met, if Alfor hadn't been so invested in also getting away from things, and if it hadn't felt like kicking a still-downy newborn Dartrix.   "I don't think she likes me very much because of it - the last time we were both on ship I was trying to avoid her. I ... might have snapped at her. A few times." 

He wasn't sure what he was going to do if she sniped at him trying to dodge out on things with Alfor there. Hopefully just ducking behind Alfor and letting him handle it would at least look like he was taking some part of his Intended Duties seriously enough for her and Alfor could distract her, although he did feel a little guilty about using Alfor as a shield there.

It was hard to tell what Alfor thought of it, but one of his eyebrows had gone up, and he was leaning on the bed frame next to his open case.   "I think I can probably talk her down." 

The alarms rang in Coran's head.   He knew how fast Alfor could lapse into flirting.   He was quick to backpedal if the attention was unwanted, sure, but it was awkward and sometimes just turned into bleeding in the water, and Princess Liastra hadn't struck Coran as someone with a lot of tolerance for silliness lately when he'd seen her.   "Alfor, she's already been helping handle some management for civil programs in the outer system worlds. You try anything and she will eat you alive and use your bones to make decorative wind chimes." 

It didn't seem like a deterrent exactly, but Alfor did sputter a little, with a half-nervous bark of laughter.   "Do you really think I would - Okay, look. If she's the most likely candidate for the Queen, you and I both know there's no guarantee of that meaning anything anyway, even if I _do_ pass Ordeal, and-"   Alfor made a couple staccato, half-finished hand gestures. "Really I should probably be treating her as off-limits anyway. Charming someone out of a fight is one thing, but if she didn't like _you_ , I don't think she's going to be that impressed with _me_ , either, and I should probably not go messing everything up before I even attempt the Ordeal."     
Something about it didn't sit right with Coran, but he wasn't sure he could quite pin it down yet.   They both had a messy relationship with their heritage and intended responsibilities, there was just...

Somehow, something wasn't quite right with the way Alfor was talking about it, and Coran knew it was just going to keep bothering him until he figured it out, but he wasn't sure how to make sense of it.   

Neither of them really slept well that night.   Coran tried, but found himself staring at the ceiling for most of it.

The silence of the dark room was periodically broken by Alfor.   Early in the night it was distracted musings that made some sort of sense; "I bet I could fix the conversion ratios on the smaller-scale generator by adjusting the cabling length" and "I wonder who else is going to be at the conference".

As the night went on, it teetered into things like "It's kind of terrifying how color is just an illusion of how our brains make sense of light" and "Do interstellar plant structures dream?".  Coran considered throwing a pillow at him, but he only had one pillow, and didn't want to leave his blankets to retrieve it.

He also couldn't honestly say Alfor was actually keeping him awake.   Getting drug out to some hastily planned conference where Princess Liastra was possibly still pondering turning his internal organs into festive decorations _and_ there were people that might honestly consider killing him for being an Altean and close by Alfor was not how he'd wanted to spend his break.   

All of those lectures about current political situations and it being Serious were sounding much more meaningful now that he'd gotten to stare down the pointy end of a Dantalion spear.   Alfor probably did have a better idea how to navigate it right now than he did, at least, but Alfor also was genuinely interested in other cultures.

And had been either hanging around or flirting with half of the university, including some Galra and a couple Dantalion students.   It had to count for something.

The ship meeting up with the Castle didn't have a teludav, but the Castle wasn't far away, either - a couple Vargas, maybe.   Alfor's jittery nerves made it onto the ship and out the hangar bay; Coran didn't really notice either of them falling asleep until they were getting nudged awake in the Castle's hangar, propped up against each other on the bench.   

Coran knew the King was on the Castle often enough.   

He knew the King's office and responsibility to be the leader of diplomatic efforts and the military meant that it was a certainty he would be attending the Conference, even if that had somehow gotten blurred out in Alfor's tired and dispirited grumbles about "my father". 

It didn't make it any easier to step off the ship distracted and see the King, in ceremonial armor, waiting in the hangar bay, all sharp-cut angles and baleful focus, like a welder's statue.   

If he looked he could see some similarities in features to Alfor, but it was still somehow hard to picture them as related.

Alfor had trudged ahead, stopping to straighten his shoulders, only half trying to cover a sour sulk.   Coran slipped behind him; his grandfather was familiar, the King was terrifying.

"You can stop glaring at me like that.   I would've rather let you stay on that station well away from everything for this, but we might have a chance to at least negotiate a cease-fire, and I am not about to chance making a bad impression by 'seeming suspicious' when everyone else is coming with a group and family members."   The King sighed, looking away; even if he wasn't breaking any of his stern carriage, there were echoes of a familiar mannerism to it that he'd never actually registered as the same.

"Just - try to stay out of trouble for once?   If you get caught somewhere you're not supposed to be, you could actually make the current conflicts _worse_."   

"I'll be careful."   Alfor's tone was sullen and Coran found a new sense of dread - what would happen to Alfor if someone honestly hostile caught him sneaking around.

The King stared off past them long-sufferingly; he wasn't buying it any more than Coran was.   "Let's just get to the bridge, shall we?"

The Castle wasn't the largest ship in circulation, but it was easily big enough to count as a capitol ship, a recent addition to the Altean fleet capable of holding its own against battlecruisers several times its size.   The first time Coran had seen it as a child, it was a framework in a construction station.

He'd helped with working on it for a while, at first with close supervision and then with stretches where he'd been given things to work on or monitor the finer work around some of the machines on; the final work and launch were the last time he'd really gotten along with his grandfather, before everything had shifted focus to reminders that he was supposed to adjust to follow in the family footsteps.   It'd been a span of a few phoebs where his grandfather's old stories of diplomatic and exploration missions and early conflicts he'd fought through alongside the previous King went from distant tales he'd adored as a child, to something hanging over his head when he wasn't sure what he wanted.

That was another thing he wasn't looking forward to here; his grandfather was on the ship somewhere, and he didn't want to deal with that conversation in any form, whether it was getting hassled over protocol or misguided approval for "finally stepping up to the family heritage".

The ship was busy, more tense than usual even if it was lighter in tone; he knew they were drawing attention, even if the crew coming and going parted in front of them and gave a wide berth with the King in the lead.   There were some alerts going out, the warning going over the intercom that all hangars and airlocks were secure before the countdown to a wormhole jump.

It gave Coran something else to dread, because there was a short list of people that were probably at the helm, and they'd be getting to the bridge well within the start of the window when she could step away from it.   

Alfor stopped just inside the door to the bridge, letting the King go on ahead, and even though Coran almost bumped into him from behind, he was honestly grateful for the chance to stay out of the way and have some cover.   The bridge crew had definitely noticed them, but staying back meant it'd be awkward for anyone to stare.

The King's check-in with the bridge and the basic report about the jump passed Coran's notice without catching anything - everything was normal, it was just routine formality to keep everyone aware and everything logged.   

What did catch his attention was that the Princess was given clearance to pass off monitoring the helm for the near-varga before they reached their destination.

He shrank back behind Alfor a little more; Alfor had stiffened a little, straightening his clothes, and Coran dearly hoped it was nervousness and not something else, because even if there was still that funny nag about something wrong with Alfor's reasoning, the conclusion that _flirting with her was a bad idea_ had been more than sound.   It was seeming even more sound with the oddly dubious, curious look she was giving them as she wandered back by the door.

"Prince Alfor, Coran."   She nodded politely to them, but the funny gauging curious look hadn't passed; she knew something was off.   "I'd heard you were coming, but I wasn't sure if you'd actually manage to make it without interrupting your studies."

"Princess Liastra."   Alfor returned the nod.   "There's a break in the term; very well timed, since I don't think we could've afforded to miss this."   

It hit Coran that the entire sullen sulk Alfor'd been in and out of since they got the call about this conference had vanished somewhere between the hangar and the bridge, and the bastard was actually managing to seem _glib_ somehow, even if Alfor did seem a little tense to Coran.   

From the way Liastra's eyes flickered between Coran and Alfor with a faint eyebrow raise, she had definitely caught the look Coran shot the back of Alfor's head.     
"That is fortunate, although from what I'd heard, it sounds like you two would've managed regardless." 

Of course there was gossip.   They _were_ doing well academically, at least, even with few Alteans attending, which was at least the good side of it - Coran was sure it'd registered as making a good impression on their people's behalf in that respect.

It was the rest of what might have come up that he was worried about, now, especially since that side was probably understated and missing large parts.

"Well, I know it's a bit of an unusual interest, but I've always had a fascination with alchemy, engineering and research; really, getting to study around so much that we wouldn't have seen around Altea is an incredible chance."   

That was less constructed smooth and more actual enthusiasm; if she wasn't careful, she'd end up with Alfor rambling about how different species and cultures interacted with the same principles in technology.   Coran wouldn't have minded, although he wasn't sure how much overlapped; it was going better than he'd expected, even though he couldn't shake the feeling there was something else waiting to drop.

No, he did have a clue what the other problem was.   It was if she decided to lean around Alfor and address him, rather than letting him hiding behind Alfor, after how badly they'd fought the last time they'd been in the same place.   

"Hopefully all will go well and we won't be keeping you too long."   She sounded at least a little amused; for a moment, Coran thought Alfor had them off the hook.   "I admit that I am a little surprised - I think you're the first person in a while who's managed to get along well with Coran."   

There was definitely a look shot around Alfor's shoulder, and Coran tried to edge a little more behind him.   

Alfor looked back for a moment, smiling nervously.   "Really? I'm not sure how, I'm almost surprised he hasn't tried to drown _me_ yet somewhere."   

Coran wasn't sure how to dance through that minefield, but he wanted to bury his face in his hands, dead certain Alfor had just failed.

She tilted her head, raising an eyebrow at both of them.   "I'm sure you couldn't be that bad - but I should be going, I did tell Jalis I'd meet with him during the jump."   

Alfor stiffened with a tiny erk, and she swept out of the bridge.   Coran made a questioning noise, nudging Alfor from behind; Alfor checked that nobody was near them and that the bridge crew were all occupied before he leaned back, voice dropping.

"My cousin.   He's-" Alfor paused, struggling with it.   "Terrifying? He's very…. competitive. And we've gotten in trouble before trying to get at each other, and he.   Er. Is _very good_ at catching me out on things. I'd heard he was going into the military academy, but-"   Alfor made a small, helpless hand-gesture with another nervous check that nobody was watching. 

Alfor was first in line to attempt the Ordeal for succession, which was one conflict Alfor could see glaringly, and if she was hanging around this cousin... "...So some of the trouble you've gotten into _before_?"   

Even if Alfor never went into detail about it, it was hard not to realize that Alfor's shenanigans hadn't started with getting away from the homeworld and being less monitored, they’d just been enabled by the independence.

"If she knows him, she knows every stupid thing I've done since I was barely able to walk."   

"Well."   Coran leaned on the wall nearby.   "At least you weren't trying to flirt with her, anyway?"   It should've been a statement, but he had the suspicion it needed phrased as a question.

Alfor just barely sank into a sulk.   He should have known.

The rest of the trip passed uneventfully, if "uneventfully" included the both of them trying to avoid attention as much as possible, sneaking out at the first opportunity to find an unused lounge in the vague vicinity of the bridge.   When the announcement was made that the ship was about to exit the wormhole, in spite of themselves Alfor half-moved to the door and Coran was almost out of his seat; there'd be a better view of the station hosting the conference from the bridge, and it wasn't one either of them had ever been to.

The King and Coran's grandfather were also likely to be on the bridge, and that was enough for second thoughts and just slipping out to gather their things instead; if they showed up early to disembark, there'd be less time for more prodding about 'staying out of trouble' and specific bans they'd need to circumvent, and they could at least pretend they weren't avoiding anybody.   

With all of the commotion it worked incredibly well, and there wasn't more than dodgy looks suggesting that either of the older figures had caught on; Coran's Grandfather made a few attempts to catch them as the Altean delegation disembarked, but kept getting caught for logistics and other problems, and the King had enough to keep track of that he didn't even attempt more than looking over to make sure they were with the group.   

They were among the first off the ship and realized this might not've been entirely thought through when they were also among the first on the docks where the two guides were waiting. 

The two slim Kraxi were only slightly shorter than Alfor, loose, bright-colored clothes draped around them with a handful of decorations that were covering pockets, pearlescent carapaces with colorful patterns in bands and spots; they each had three sets of jointed antennae that perked over at the first of the Alteans off the ship. Alfor froze as soon as they looked over.   Fortunately, they both waited until the King stepped off the ship, and Coran heard Alfor let out the breath he'd been holding. 

The actual delegation wasn't large - the King, Alfor, Liastra, one of the Admirals, two other older Alteans that Coran only hazily recognized as one of the senior diplomats and the head of intelligence, along with a few others their age and a couple of older Alteans that weren't in any kind of uniform.   From what he could overhear, the Queen would be en route after, held up back on Altea by affairs of state, and his Grandfather was taking the Castle back to the homeworld for that.

By the local standard timing, they were arriving a little after "Midday", in the middle of the other delegations; there was a quintant and a half set aside for letting the delegations arrive, get bearings, and settle into rooms.   

The station was built in a wide oval, walkways and structures running along the inside with large open areas; the outer bulkheads of it had a shifting projection of soft colors to break up the light metal, and there were plants from a few different planets, fountains, streams and ponds built into the catwalks and open areas.   There were people of several different species coming and going; the Kraxi were hosting and owned the station, but he saw Olkari and two or three others he didn't recognize or had only seen in passing back on the trade station. It would've been a nice place to visit, if they weren't being pulled along in the general orientation tour for a diplomatic event where they'd be dealing with being watched constantly with Expectations again.   Each of the delegations had an area in one of the larger structures with rooms and amenities ringed around a central hub of walkways, halls, and elevators, with neutral, more monitored areas above and below where most of the conference would be occurring. 

Alfor paid more attention to which delegation was staying where than he had - he noticed the Prince's intent expression a little too late.   He wasn't sure he wanted to know what Alfor was up to, but he knew he'd end up finding out one way or another, probably when Alfor drug him along with.

The key codes for their areas were sent to personal devices; he spotted Tila's smaller, concealable drone under Alfor's collar after noticing the message-received chirp from both the drone and Alfor's wristband.   

For some reason, that just made him more certain Alfor would be Up To Something; having Tila along, even hidden and staying quiet, was normal.

Tila making a point of having the door codes was suspicious.

After their guides bowed and left them in their area of the complex, the rest of the delegation started dispersing to rooms to stow luggage; they tried to get away quickly, but only made it to the door of their shared room.

"Alfor!"   

Alfor froze with his hand over the access pad, staring off at the doorway as it opened without moving, and Coran flinched; the King was in the hallway, slowing down after hurrying to catch up to them.   Alfor sighed, taking a step back and turning on his heel, folding his hands behind him. Coran looked between Alfor and the King, and sidled around, quietly pulling both of their cases into the room. 

The King was less at attention than Coran usually saw him, leaning on the wall with a frazzled sort of shift.   "I know how many distractions there are on this station, and I know how your curiosity gets." 

Alfor was staying stiff, but he wasn't sulking quite yet - just headed there.   

The King took a half step back, shifting and looking away.   "Look, it - whatever you've been doing, you've actually been mentioned by people from a few outlying civilizations, and we've had a couple groups we barely had contact with actually approach us favorably because of you helping out some of their students.   If this were anything else, I'd - probably be admitting that it's not as big of a risk as I'd worried about."

"But?", Alfor filled in.

"But," the King straightened, continuing on.   "In this case I was not joking that you could make things _worse_.   We're already at war with the Dantalion and the situation is _not_ friendly with the Galra or with Rygnirath.   This is the first time in several decaphoebs some of them have even agreed to sit down to talk to us, and I know the Galra have been suspicious of our friendly relations with Nalquod.   If you're not careful how you approach them, let alone if you're caught sneaking around their space, we could end up in open war with three different civilizations. Do you understand that?"   

"I understand perfectly well."   Alfor had barely moved the entire time, stiff and irritable; Coran shrank a little behind the doorframe, feeling like he really should not be there right then.   

"This is important, Alfor. There are countless lives at stake on this, and if you get too reckless, _yours_."   

"You know, you could _try_ trusting me for a change."   

Coran was definitely feeling like he should be anywhere but there.

The King sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.   "Just... be careful?"

"I'm sure I'll manage somehow."   Alfor turned, stalking into the room; the King stayed in the hallway, staring after him despairingly.   Before Coran could shrink back into the room, he motioned to Coran to come out. 

"Coran, can I speak to you for a moment?"

Coran cringed and slid around the edge of the doorframe; with nobody near the doorway, it closed a couple moments after, leaving him alone in the hallway with the King.     
He'd been _around_ the King before, but he never really remembered having the man's direct attention for more than a moment or two, usually as some addendum to his grandfather or, before that, his parents.   He pulled to a nervous attention, hands folded behind his back. "Your majesty?" 

"At ease, Coran."   

As made of sharp edges and stiff lines as the King was, now he just seemed ... tired, chipped around the edges.   Coran tried to relax, without much luck.

"Your Grandfather does talk about you, you know."   

He flinched; the last couple of decaphoebs had been strained, at best.   

"I know you don't want to be here, and I know you've already shown yourself to be a gifted engineer."   

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking down; it wasn't what he'd expected.   "I - ... thank you, your majesty." 

The King looked away himself, to the wall.   "I know your family's been attending the throne for several generations now, and I know how important that's been - more than you realize."   

Coran swallowed, shrinking, suddenly uncomfortable for very different reasons; he'd managed to avoid reminders that his parents had been close with the King, other than the constant pressure for him to follow after them, to live up to their example.   

"I know Alfor isn't easy to keep up with, but... at least for a little longer, please look after him?   He avoids us anymore, and anyone else trying to make sure he doesn't get himself killed…. And I’m sure you’ve noticed that he doesn't really think things through."   Somehow he was starting to look and sound as old as Coran's grandfather. 

Coran tried not to snort; he could only imagine what the King would've thought if he knew about the stunt they'd pulled a couple phoebs ago.   "I'll try." 

The King actually seemed relieved at that, although he was still acting odd.   "In a few decaphoebs, when he's closer to his Ordeal, if you still would rather step down from the family inheritance and focus on engineering - I'll deal with your Grandfather."   

That got Coran stiffening, attention snapping up to stare blankly.   "Come again?"

"Your family's post _is_ important - and it has to be something where the crowns can rely on them with absolute trust; the main advisors are sometimes the only ones they can speak freely with.   It's not a job you can do if you don't want to be there." 

He wasn't sure how to react to that.   It was what he'd wanted, or what he was pretty sure he wanted - no military training, no pressure about diplomacy or politics, a chance to walk away from all of that and just move into a workshop and focus on machines rather than people.

And already he felt awful about the thought of abandoning Alfor to deal with _everything_ while he got to go do something else; it seemed like something that would only be moreso after those couple of decaphoebs came and went.   Somehow Alfor's half-wit idea of running off to be space pirates and fringe explorers seemed like it'd be easier to swallow than stepping down and becoming a dedicated engineer while Alfor went on to whatever he ended up with. He wasn't sure he could live with himself, or face Alfor if he did accept it.

Of course, there was also the possibility Alfor might not end up succeeding his father, which would mean the position would be attached to someone else that he probably didn't want to deal with.

"I'll see what things look like then," he started; the rest came half blurted out and not thought through beforehand.   "And if Alfor doesn't pass Ordeal, I'll definitely take you up on that." 

There was a quiet noise from the King that he could've sworn was a half-laugh.   "I'll check later, then." He waved Coran toward the door. "You're dismissed." 

Coran took that immediately, hurrying back into the room before anything else could come up - it wasn't what he'd been expecting, but he could think of about five different subjects that could've come up that he really didn't want to talk to the King about right then.   

Alfor was on one of the two beds, propped up sullenly against the wall.   He barely looked up when Coran entered, looking away fast.

“He asked me to look out for you.”   Coran flopped out on the other bed, hands folded behind his head.   

Alfor snorted quietly.   

“....He also said that if I still didn’t want to follow in my family’s footsteps in a couple decaphoebs, he’d talk to my grandfather.”

Alfor sank by the wall, face falling.   

Coran shifted, staring hard at the ceiling.   “I...told him I’d think about it and decide when the time came - and that if you didn’t end up his successor, I was out.”

Alfor stiffened, staring over at him in mute shock; it took a couple ticks for him to manage words.   “Coran - are you sure? I know how much you wanted to get away from it all...”

“I’m not sure what I want.”   He frowned, glaring at the ceiling.   “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out when I get there - it’s not like I need to decide now, right?”

“... I - thank you, Coran.   Just - don’t feel like you need to give things up on my account?”

“Oh trust me, I won’t,” he grumbled.

There was an uneventful varga or so before staying cooped up in the room being awkward at each other got to be too much; it was getting around time to go looking for food, anyway, and that meant wandering around to the other end of their area and a lower level from where their room was.   

It was a nice walkway, with one of the artificial streams running alongside it, clear water with colored shapes in it darting between water plants.   

One of the other Alteans their age was hanging by the door ahead, watching them until they got closer; Alfor gave him a dim glare, but he pushed off the wall to walk over anyway, grinning.   

“Alfor!   It’s been a while,” he called out.

As he got closer, now that Coran was paying attention, there was a little tally of things off; longer canines and sharper teeth than he should have had without some effort shapeshifting, gold eyes with the outer pupil oddly almond-shaped.   

Probably not pure Altean, but Coran wasn’t sure what else was there.   It wasn't unheard of, even with the royal and noble families - in fact, sometimes it was a little more likely, if they'd been off-world holding diplomatic duties or leading exploration efforts.

"Jalis."   Alfor sounded less than thrilled and looked incredibly suspicious.   Jalis _did_ seem to be grinning a little too broadly and pointily.   "What are you up to?"

"Really, Alfor.   Why wouldn't I be happy to see the pilot fourth-ranked in sims around the capitol?"

Coran raised an eyebrow, glancing to Alfor, who was confused for a moment, then Alfor narrowed his eyes, shoulders hunching in a full sulk.   

He _had_ been third-ranked.   "Enjoy it while it lasts, Jalis, because that's going away as soon as I get back."   

Jalis was laughing, patting Alfor's shoulder as he passed.   Alfor stayed at full sulk, heading for the door; Coran noticed that Jalis hung back, watching, but wasn't sure what to make of it until Alfor actually walked through the door.

The doorframes had a narrow ledge, and there was a flicker of something as the door opened for Alfor to enter, right before a container of the thin, translucent grease compound used in small ship maintenance dumped off the ledge onto Alfor.

They could both hear Jalis cackling back on the walkway, and in an instant, Alfor was tearing back after him; Coran stood in the doorway, staring back at the yell of "HEY JALIS, THE FISH NEED COMPANY". 

Coran considered his options, and decided he wanted no part of whatever was going on; he stepped inside, carefully edging around the small puddle of what grease hadn't hit Alfor.   

He didn't notice the quiet, stifled snickering until he was inside, and realized he was now alone in a room with Liastra.

A second after that, he looked up at the doorframe, the door, and back to her, as he realized something about what Alfor had just walked into, even though there was no question Jalis had known about it.

"...There's no way that could've been set from outside."

She smiled, and he was pretty sure the temperature of the room dropped a few degrees.   

He stuck by the wall and counter as far away from her as was possible in the little kitchenette, deciding it was better to not address the prank on Alfor at all right now - not when he knew he was probably still on shaky ground with her, at best. 

He fumbled with a simple roll and a mug of something hot that he didn't really recognize; after enough time with Alfor dragging him around to try out various random alien food, he was pretty sure he'd be fine with anything someone set in front of him.   

Settling at the table with it, he realized there really wasn't much of an "away" possible; that if she was there for the diplomatic conference, then they'd be periodically in the same room regularly and he wasn't sure how long he could avoid her, or how much he really wanted to explain if someone asked.

And that mostly meant Alfor, although knowing Alfor he'd also be dealing with the other delegations friendly and not fast, and that wouldn't have been that pleasant, either.

He swallowed, poking his roll.   Some of it just wasn't going to go away; she _wanted_ to be there, was incredibly dedicated, and did take it all seriously and with enthusiasm, and he was still figuring out what he wanted, but was probably never going to be thrilled with how it'd all been piled on him.   

But...

well, he remembered enough of the arguments to know that he'd taken some cheap shots that he didn't actually feel all that great about anymore.

She definitely noticed when he straightened, inhaling deeply and stiffening his shoulders, eyes closed tight.   "Sssssso. About before." 

"Yes?"   She sounded guarded, and he wasn't looking to see how she was reacting past that.   

"I'm not - I don't -," he fumbled, still keeping his eyes shut.   "I don't know what I want, I don't know if I want to be here, and so help me I'll take all of this back if you start picking at me again over it."   There was silence for the tick it took him to muster anything else. "But - some of what I said before was." 

The whole thing was harder than it'd always been made to sound.   "Kind of uncalled for. And I should apologize for that." 

There was silence for a few long ticks, and he was starting to wish Alfor and Jalis would bring whatever loud squabble they were having into the room instead of it just being occasional muffled noise outside.

"Well, that's more than I was expecting."   

He let out a breath and leaned an elbow on the table, drumming his fingers and looking away; it was probably about the best he should've expected, really.

"Why are you so angry about it, anyway?"   

It felt like there was a lot more to the question she was leaving out, her tone brittle and testy.   

"Because I've never had a choice in any of it!", he snapped, barely reining it back as he folded his arms and leaned away from the table, the roll forgotten.   "All my life I've just been told what I was going to do with myself, sit straight, act proper, be perfect or you'll ruin everything, and it only got _worse_ after-"

He cut himself off there, dragging his attention back to pick on the roll.   

"It's not like I _wanted_ to be here, like you," he muttered bitterly.

The room fell silent; he knew she was watching him, and he didn't really care, or care to look up and try to figure out what she was thinking.   

It stayed silent like that until the door opened; Jalis walked in easily, returning to a mug across the table.   There were a few splatters of damp where water had gotten on his clothes, but he was definitely too dry for what Alfor had been threatening and far too quietly smug.

Alfor drug in not long after, soaking wet and dripping a trail behind him, his hair partly pulled out of its ponytail; there was a curl of translucent green tangled in his hair tie, part of a frond that trailed down over his collar and across his shoulder.   He sat at the table in full sulk, staring at the center of it with a scowl. 

"Er...Alfor?"

He looked up to Coran in utter sullen defeat.

"You've got.   A bit of green here."   Coran motioned miming where Alfor's hair was tied back and down his shoulder.

Alfor made a little frustrated noise of resignation and returned to staring at the table.

After another dobosh or two, Alfor heaved a heavy sigh, finally reaching up to pull the frond out of his hair.   "Well, I'm not covered in ship oil anymore," he observed, staring off into space distantly. 

Both of the other two snickered, and Coran was not sure if Alfor had figured out yet that Jalis was only an accomplice for that one.   

He gave a little tentative jerk of his head back toward the door and raised a hand, trying to get Liastra's attention without actually wanting to address her directly yet.   When she did look up with at least what he hoped wasn't hostility, he stuck to a simple, cautious, "...So, why...?"

She glanced sideways to the door, and there was a recognition starting to spread across Alfor's face.

"Why not?" She shrugged.

Alfor stared at her, jaw hanging open, with one of his worst expressions of sheer kicked-fluffling betrayal.   

"What did I do to you?!", he finally squeaked.

"Nothing?"   She gave him a guileless blink, resting her chin on one hand.   "You know you're more than welcome to try and retaliate, if you think you can pull something off without disrupting anything."   

Alfor closed his mouth, blinking at her with an expression that about approximated the gibberish a computer spat back when it was having a fatal error.   

By the time the four of them split up, Jalis and Liastra going different directions, Alfor was still quiet, the fatal-error having given way to furrowed concentration and vaguely distressed confusion.   That continued to come and go as they explored the Altean delegation's area; Coran spent most of that debating if he should nudge Alfor to change out of his soaking wet clothes, or just wait to see how long it took Alfor to think of it himself.   

The answer was about two-thirds of a varga; it was a small mercy that their rooms were diplomatic suites, with full showers attached.   Coran wasn't incredibly inclined to go exploring on his own, so he hung around in the suite with reading while Alfor cleaned up.

After that, they meandered out to spend the rest of the "evening" not staying in one place and particularly not staying around the Altean delegation, getting bearings on the neutral, shared areas of the compound the conference was in.   At first it seemed like the only other people about were the local staff, sparsely spread out doing checks and maintenance or going about their business with polite nods in passing to the two Alteans.

They found what Tila identified from the map as one of the main conference areas, a large, open room with a high canopy ceiling hanging underneath most of the compound; from the outside, the domed canopy shifted colors like the outer bulkheads.   Inside, the arches that supported it were always visible, pale white-silver, but the panels seemed to be set to some kind of idle program with a projection of a cloudy sky; every few doboshes, it would smoothly fade through to a different skyscape.   The floor had large polished areas of burnished metal with transparent cutouts forming patterns; below the floor was a large central pool that connected to several of the artificial streams, with some larger aquatic shapes of plants and other life. There were areas spaced around the edges where that was open, with shallow pools on raised shelves and fountains; it actually looked possible to slip from one of those pools into the larger tank below.   A few areas had dividers with trellises of blooming vines climbing them, green and blueish foliage in between multicolored flowers.

There were seams in the pillars where, through the translucent shielding, Coran could almost make out some of the workings; he almost walked into one of the pools trying to get a closer look, thankfully catching himself when there wasn't anything solid under his foot to find a different pillar to focus on.   

He was absorbed enough in it that he didn't realize at first that he'd lost track of Alfor; by the time he turned to say something to the Prince and found the area around him empty, he wasn't even sure how long Alfor hadn't been there.   

Losing track of Alfor on a foreign station was cause for panic; he didn't _think_ Alfor would get into much on the first night, but that also depended entirely on what caught Alfor's attention and if he got distracted by something.

Realizing he could hear Alfor's voice, muffled somewhere on the other side of the large space in one of the secluded spots, was a relief; there was someone else he was talking to, a voice that didn't sound quite right for Altean, but too muffled for Coran to place anything else.   

He headed for the voices, ducking around the dividers until he could see Alfor, cheerfully talking and gesturing in mid-sentence of something about early space exploration.   The relief was dampened at the realization he was talking to a slightly taller Dantalion, but they seemed to be focused on the conversation with guarded bemusement; really, Alfor was far from the worst person to turn loose for something like this.

Alfor noticed Coran first, perking up and waving him over.   "Coran! There you are - you were so intent on the projection system, I didn't want to pull you away from it!"

The Dantalion paused, then jerked tense suddenly, turning sharp to follow Alfor's gesture; there was a brief, wide-eyed beat and then they narrowed their eyes at Coran in a mix of recognition and disbelief.   

Coran realized that not only had Alfor called him by name within earshot of the trainee Wayfinder during their trespassing incident, but that they'd been so sure he and Honerva wouldn't draw enough attention to be recognized that he hadn't been wearing anything like a faceplate or mask.   He wanted to believe their luck wasn't that bad, but he already knew it was. 

The way Alfor froze for a tick, smile and entire pose not budging, he was pretty sure Alfor just realized they had a problem, too.

There was only one thing left to do:

See how thoroughly they could fast-talk their way out of admitting guilt and causing a diplomatic incident.

Coran smiled, and prayed it didn't look too nervous as he walked over; the bruise on his face had healed, and fussing at where it'd been to check that it was gone would only confirm suspicions if it was the same one.

"Coran, this is Trigel; she's a trainee Wayfinder, here for about the same reason we are. Trigel, this is Coran, engineer-in-training and one of my best friends." Alfor was doing about the same thing Coran was.

Trigel looked between the two of them, disbelief now mixed with suspicion.   

After another tick, she seemed to have settled on vaguely offended suspicion, shooting both of them a shaded look.   "Alfor, didn't you say your primary field was alchemy?"

Alfor's smile was just slightly more nervous.   "Yes? It's rather hard to not at least pick up some, you know, what with the religious duties associated with royalty."   

He was trying to dodge but had probably just walked straight into it.

"So I take it you'd have an interest in religion to go with your interest in foreign cultures."   Her attention may have focused more on Alfor, but Coran could see that she was keeping a sidelong eye on him.

"Well, you know, diplomatic training, it's really a necessity to seek an understanding of other cultures..."   Definitely nervous.

Trigel gave Alfor an absolutely venomous smile.   "You wouldn't happen you have an interest in old Salaxian shrines, would you?"   

Alfor blinked, and some of the nervousness faded, replaced by almost earnest enthusiasm.   "You know I'd heard that they had a tradition of some form of magic work. I'd _love_ to get a closer look someday; it seems like every species we've contacted that shows ability has a completely different way of interacting with the same basic forces.   Maybe if we can find some kind of resolution in the current conflicts it'd be possible to do some kind of exchange with them someday?" 

Trigel paused. 

Stared at him with an expression of dubious, frustrated almost-awe. 

Turned it to Coran, who just blinked and tried his best to look like he had no idea why it was important.

She narrowed her eyes at Coran.   

He raised his hands.   "Don't look at me, I'm an engineer - I wouldn't get anything like that unless it was part of some more recognizable machinery."

She shifted her jaw, set in frustration, and there was a faint, almost whirring whistle Coran could barely hear.   He knew nothing about their body language or anything, but he was certain it was not a happy noise. His best model for being made of absolute klanmuirl-shit at a time like this was Alfor; he tried his best to emulate Alfor's innocent, confused blink.   

Trigel looked between both of them with another narrowed, calculating look, and there was another of the quiet little whirring whistles.   It settled on Alfor, as she started sliding back into frustrated disbelief. "And you're King Leander's son."

"Yes?"   Alfor gave her one of his best looks of confused concern.   "Is something wrong?" 

She opened her mouth, a row of thin, pointed teeth showing, stopped, and closed her mouth again, looking between them one more time before closing her eyes with a more noticeable whistle-whir.   "No, nothing. I should really be getting back to my delegation; I think our hosts are going to be arranging a meal soon."

She gave a short, formal bow that was a little stiff, skirting around Alfor to head to the exit in something approximating calm.   

They stayed where they were for a moment, then hurried back to their room, which unfortunately required passing straight through an open sitting room.   It was a very nice, comfortable room, with a couple decorative fountains and cultivated flowers.

The King and the head of intelligence were in it, carrying on some idle conversation over their respective computer screens that stopped as they walked in, apparently not doing well enough at acting natural.

The head of intelligence actually looked concerned; the King's worry had horrified edges.

"Alfor?   Is everything alright?"   The King didn't sound sure he wanted the answer.

"Absolutely fine!"   Alfor grinned, shoulders stiffening.

The King raised an eyebrow to Coran, who was also smiling nervously in spite of himself; Coran just nodded in agreement, not trusting himself to open his mouth.

A tick passed, and the King buried his head in his hands.   "Just be ready for dinner soon," he said, muffled.

The dinner was in one of the common rooms below, the tables scattered and smaller; Coran spotted Trigel almost as soon as they entered, watching them suspiciously enough to be distracted from the others she was with.   It lasted until a much larger, unfamiliar figure sighed and put a hand on her shoulder to steer her somewhere else; Coran wasn't sure what species they were, but he was thankful they were there to insist on a distraction even as he worried how many people might have a know what'd happened.   A couple of the others that direction did notice with confusion, but the most reaction the rest of her delegation had seemed to just be confusion before going on with their day; nobody made any effort to approach them.

With disaster apparently averted, it didn't take long for Alfor to start meandering, and Coran found himself tagging along around the outskirts of the area the Altean delegation had mostly settled in; at first Alfor was keeping up an amiable, quiet commentary, filling Coran in on what he recognized.   Coran wasn't completely out of the loop - being hauled around outlying stations meant he already had familiarity with the amphibious Nalquodians, a few of whom were meandering the room more making tentative attempts at small talk with the others. He'd seen Galra before to notice when Alfor started pondering how sparse their delegation looked at first; Alfor apparently recognized enough to know that it was only a couple of the military leaders present at first, the rest of them trickling in later, with the King and Prince among the last to arrive.

Alfor’s father was making rounds of greetings by himself, leaving behind the entire rest of the Altean delegation; it was all quiet enough to be lost in the other noise of conversation.   There was a Dantalion wearing a formal uniform with symbols Coran did recognize as likely one of the ranking Wayfinders that was also circulating, watching more than speaking; the Galra leaders were mostly staying put, and King Leander's brief approach to greet the King looked almost as tense as his exchange with the Dantalion leadership.

The younger Galra seemed to wobble back and forth between the edges and pulling back warily, save for the prince, who had found a back corner and was not budging; Coran's best guess was that somehow, the Galra prince was even less thrilled to be involved in all this than he was.

It was a messy headache, and he was more than happy to follow behind Alfor, who was more interested in finding people from the other delegations who were willing to chat than making sense of the politics.

He caught Trigel quietly watching them at least four times despite the increasingly confused efforts of those around her to distract her from stalking them.

Coran also counted at least three times Alfor was straying close to flirting, and none of them were with anyone from a friendly delegation; it was the grace of the Ancestors that it seemed to be taken as amusing.

After the third one, later in the evening, he tugged Alfor back toward their own delegation, waiting until they were well out of earshot of anyone else to shoot Alfor a frustrated glare.   "I know it's acknowledged that diplomacy sometimes ends up in awkward places, but I'd thought that was supposed to be _avoided_ when it wouldn't be taken as an insult."

"Well, I'm not officially a diplomat of any sort yet," Alfor retorted.   "Besides, it's probably a much less threatening impression to give of our people."   

Coran rolled his eyes, giving up.   

At least it didn't look like Alfor had any odds of getting anywhere during the conference, which dramatically reduced the risk of Alfor having some approximation of a reason to go sneak into the private areas of another delegation.   

The thought didn't last long before Coran decided to not risk anything by assuming Alfor _wouldn't_ manage to surprise him.   He caught Alfor's shoulder before Alfor could get distracted again. "Look, if you do have any luck with that, promise me you'll find some quiet room in the _neutral_ space here?   I don't want to have to go rescue you from the dumbest possible way to get kidnapped ever." 

"You'd really come save me?"   Alfor had gone melodramatic and mock-sappy enough that Coran almost wanted to trip him into the nearest fountain.   "Why Coran, I'm touched!"

He jabbed Alfor in the chest with one finger, glaring back.   "Don't even start - if you're _that_ stupid, I'd be in it to make _you_ explain what happened to your father yourself."   

Alfor only laughed at first, but a little after, when they had space on others nearby again, he did lean over with a quiet, "Don't worry, I won't go sneaking into any hostile areas for that."

It was a relief, and Coran did not think at the time to question why Alfor had said 'for that'.  



	6. I Can't Close My Eyes And Make It Go Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coran ends up finding out who Alfor's other mysterious and briefly referenced confidante was when Alfor keeps the letter of his word if not the spirit. The "trespassing incident" continues to haunt them, and Coran is forced to face more than he'd wanted to of his family's recent history.

**Journal: 06-25-3014.34**  
_The first day with the formalities and pleasantries is over. Having someone to hide behind is slightly less bad, but the whole thing is still just us hanging around trying to not be an embarrassment._

_The mechanical engineering instructor will never scare me again. Not with Trigel glaring daggers whenever we’re in the same room and she spots one of us. Not when I am suddenly remembering far too much of what I’ve been told about Wayfinders and that she’s probably more than capable of smuggling weapons through secure spaces and showing up in our rooms, on campus if not here._

_I do not know who the Rygnirathian person is that keeps trying to distract her away, but one day, if the tensions end, if she doesn’t murder us in our sleep after this, I am getting them a nice gift for trying to talk her out of plotting our demise._

_Alfor got a call from Havhi last night. She’s absolutely fascinated by the conference, and I did not envy Alfor the tap dance of trying to encourage her enthusiasm while clarifying how many people here potentially want us dead and avoiding the subject of how much he doesn’t want to be here at the same time._

_Her people are apparently in a place where the war is occasionally going on almost on their doorstep, too. I’m not sure what any of the civilizations involved even have to gain at this point, and Alfor isn’t really sure either._

_I think I figured out part of what’s been bothering me with him. He talks about how sure he is that he’d be a mess at and doesn’t even seem to notice how much he’s already doing, looking out for people nobody else pays attention to and getting along with groups that he shouldn’t be able to. He wants to do more to help, and I’m not sure what to do or say about it - I think, maybe, he might be a good king, even with a chance of ending this nonsense - but that feels too much like pushing him at something he doesn’t want._

_And signing up for something I’m not sure I want, since I’m not sure I could leave him to that and live with myself if he does pass his Ordeal._

**Journal: 06-25-3014.34, 4 vargas later**  
_I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING I SAID. HOW DOES THIS MORON EVEN EXIST. HOW HAS HE NOT DIED. WHAT DRUNKEN GODS HAVE PUT HIM HERE TO TEST ALL THE REST OF US FOR THEIR OWN PETTY ENTERTAINMENT._

*~*~Between the two entries~*~*

The diplomatic proceedings were mostly just mind-numbing when they were required to be there; it was scant mercy that they weren't actually expected to be present for most of the debates about territorial issues and trade routes and resources and past slights. 

In fact, the Kraxi that were officiating seemed to be encouraging the family members and more civilian members of the delegations to spend time in the same areas; Coran was ambivalent on it, but Alfor acted like it was an unexpected gift where he'd thought he was dealing with nothing but a miserable chore. 

He did have to admit that Liastra noticing Alfor's flirting attempts led to some free entertainment, as she started wandering over to blithely try to throw Alfor off and see how much he could manage to roll with. Coran started quietly keeping a scorecard on a small reminder screen of his computer, and a moment after he'd made it, there was a second set of tallies with Tila's handle added to it, along with the AI setting and adjusting odds. 

He probably should've been more upset by this, but really, he was more surprised the AI hadn't done anything obviously letting on that she was getting into his computer before.

After the first few incidents, he started to suspect Liastra was less testing how much Alfor could roll with and more testing Alfor's tolerance for being derailed into self-deprecating humor and mild shots taken at his own dignity; he wasn't sure how much of the boundaries she did seem to be keeping it within was mercy on her part and how much was the diplomatic nature of the setting. 

Even that tapered off some after a while, and eventually she wandered off, looking vaguely satisfied with herself; Alfor just shot quiet baffled looks the direction she'd left occasionally before shrugging it off to go back to curiosity-chasing and fishing for anyone from the other delegations willing to hold a conversation.

Coran actually let himself believe, after a while, that Alfor was not going to do something massively stupid. There was another large dinner with everyone attending, some downtime after where Alfor hung around the common area, and then they headed back to their room to sleep with no sign of Alfor's attention wandering anywhere that he couldn't get to with what was openly accessible.

Coran did have a lot on his mind to keep running circles over after the lights went out; figuring out what parts of his hatred of his situation came from where, how attached he was to Alfor, if he actually hated the idea of tagging along through the politics or just the way it'd been piled on him, if he could even handle it as the gravity was slowly sinking in about 'lives at stake' and how dangerous it could've gotten, what Trigel might have reported and how much could go wrong if she _did_ call them out on it or manage to come up with some kind of evidence linking them to a 'trespassing incident'.

He did manage sleep, but more fitfully than he wanted to let on, and at first he didn't even realize Alfor wasn't in the room anymore. 

It was sheer chance, waking up with "what if we screwed up already and end up making everything worse" gnawing on him and finally deciding to roll over and see if Alfor was awake enough to ask what he thought.

Alfor wasn't there; the other bed was empty, blankets a mess.

He muttered a couple of curses to himself, grabbing nightclothes, and scrambled out to check their delegation's small kitchen; no sign of the Prince.

The lounge area was similarly empty. 

He knew that scrambling around to check the neutral, shared areas would be noticeable and suspicious, and possibly draw questions about Alfor's whereabouts if the prince _had_ managed to slip out unnoticed. The longer he spent searching, the higher the odds of someone seeing him at it, the more risk he put them all in. 

It was as good a time as any to cheat; Alfor and Tila had given him permissions to track their location.

He called up his computer, pulled a small static heads up display he could use while continuing to avoid being seen out of his room, and set it to navigate to where Alfor was, with a quiet prayer to please, please, not end up walking in on anything, please let Alfor have enough sense to not be chasing skirts or otherwise at a time when it could cause a Diplomatic Incident. 

The map placed Alfor’s location square in the middle of the Galra delegation’s area.

Not being at war with the Galra openly didn’t mean the tensions weren’t there, and the old Galra king was definitely not fond of Altea. He’d seen how stiff and tense the interactions between their respective leaders had been, even if he and Alfor didn’t yet have security clearance to know if there were Active Unofficial Hostilities. It didn't help that Daibazaal had an alliance with the Dantalion Belt, either; even with avoiding politics, it was hard not to know that everyone was nervous about whether the Galra would stay uninvolved or not. 

He’d had some basic combat training. He’d been lousy at it and he hated it, but he’d had it, even if he hoped he didn’t need to use it.

He was also unarmed, and this entire thing was a bad idea, but he couldn’t really call for help until he knew for sure Alfor was in trouble or it would _definitely_ be a Diplomatic Incident; “Inside the Galra Delegation’s section of the quarters” was high on the list of places they were Not Supposed To Be. 

He found the door that had to be to the room the tracker was indicating Alfor was in, flattening against it to listen; he didn’t quite catch something that was definitely Alfor’s voice and didn’t sound distressed, but with Alfor, that didn’t really mean much. He was sure that one day Alfor would be amiably chatting at and possibly flirting with hostile military aiming weapons at him. 

The other voice was definitely Galra and noticeably trying to keep their volume down, with mixed success. “That was before I knew who you were and how - completely _moronic_ and suicidal you were being!” There was a frustrated sort of rumble-growl. “You know this is _exactly_ why he’s so paranoid of your people?” 

…Not a kidnapping, then. The protective panic faded out in a wave of frustration that was partly with himself for not somehow not seeing coming that _of course Alfor would be dumb enough to go visit someone from one of the semi-hostile delegations_ , and Coran counted his brief blessings that Alfor had at least kept the LETTER of his word and Coran seemed unlikely to be walking in on more than he wanted to see, since he couldn’t very well stay in the hallway and he had an idiot to collect. 

If Alfor had snuck in, then he was probably safe walking in - as soon as he figured out how to get the door open without an access attempt log. 

The com piece on his collar chirped the tone set associated with Tila, and the door opened, only long enough for him to duck inside.

“Look, there’s so few of us that are capable of shapeshifting, nevermind knowing how to shapeshift this _well_ -”, Alfor froze in mid-sentence; the big Galra had frozen, staring at the door in a mix of utter panic and something that was about to turn into an intimidation attempt or attack. 

Alfor had done a remarkable job of passing for Galra as long as nobody looked closely, down to sharp teeth and claws; the things he couldn’t change stood out a little, but he had a hood pulled down that probably served to hide his long hair and make it easier to miss his eyes when it was up. He had somehow managed to find, buy, borrow, or swipe relatively normal Galran clothing without Coran noticing. 

The Galra had more of Coran’s attention. He’d always been aware they were mostly bigger than Alteans, but it was easy to forget just _how_ big they could get until there was one within a viable threat range that was unusually tall and broad even by their standards. He had also never been close enough to an agitated Galra to realize how long their partially-retractable claws could get when they were extended - almost as long as one of Coran’s entire fingers. The mouthful of bared sharp teeth was a little mitigated by the flustered expression of panic behind it, but that didn’t do much to help Coran’s nerves, particularly not when the room was filled with a rattling growl and the Galra was definitely tensed in a ready stance to strike.

Coran flattened against the now-closed door, recognition of the massive carnivore as the Galra prince coming after his survival instinct had thoroughly established the amount of potential mortal danger he was in. 

“Coran? What’re you doing here?” 

The growling stuttered a little as the big Galra looked to Alfor. “You know him?”

“He’s one of my best friends, and my roommate back on campus.” Zarkon narrowed his eyes at Alfor, who looked away, caught out on avoiding a subject. “And, ah, if I do reach coronation, might be my advisor.” 

The massive Galra accepted that with an irritable rumble, straightening his posture to something more dignified, claws retracting until they were less blatant meathooks. “So you’re stuck trying to keep him in one piece?”, he addressed Coran, jerking his head towards Alfor. 

Coran had to put conscious effort to a solid, deep breath, putting a little space between him and the door behind him. “Unfortunately, yes.” 

Zarkon gave him a long look of the deepest, most sincere pity Coran had ever seen directed his way from anyone. “You have my deepest condolences.” 

“Oh come now, I’m not _that_ bad, am I?”, Alfor protested, only faltering at the end.

The response of “ _Yes_ ” came from both of them at once, in vehement unison.

Alfor sank down with his jaw set in a sulk, arms folded.

The moment of solidarity passed, the whole thing more surreal for it. It was obvious what was going on – that he'd just tailed Alfor sneaking off to visit the Galra Prince, who Alfor was apparently on friendly enough terms with that Zarkon was already aware of Alfor's tendency to be deficient in self-preservation instinct.

The answer to where Alfor had snuck off to raised far more questions than anything else Alfor could've done, and was not on the list of answers Coran had been expecting.

He stared up at Zarkon, who seemed almost as flabbergasted and unsure of all of this as he was. There were protocols for dealing with people of high station and their family members from other civilizations, particularly ones Altea was not on great terms with, but Coran found himself blanking on every single one of them, a lifetime of lessons he had, admittedly, half tuned out vanishing in the wake of panic and confusion. He wasn't sure it would've helped if he did remember, anyway, since he was pretty sure there wasn't a protocol for “I just burst into your private room thinking I was probably rescuing my idiot friend from a political kidnapping and ended up commiserating about him being an idiot”.

“So, uh.” He made a vague wavy hand gesture Alfor's direction; Alfor was still sulking at both of them. “How...?”

How _did_ one go about asking how the not-often-seen Prince of a semi-hostile other species got on familiar terms with the Prince one was somehow, against all protests to the contrary, getting sucked into looking out for?

Thankfully, after a moment of narrowing his eyes grumpily at Alfor, Zarkon seemed to catch Coran's intent. “He's been sneaking in for a few decaphoebs now, whenever there's an Altean delegation somewhere around our space. I didn't even know who he _was_ at first, besides an apparently suicidal Altean.”

It felt like another answer that made less sense than before he'd asked the question. Alfor was definitely listening, and already losing his ability to maintain his air of puffed-up offense; Coran's own questioning squint managed to catch Alfor's eye, and he looked up with the visible realization he'd failed any chance of pretending he was ignoring them.

“Why?” He addressed Alfor, with a similar set of vague confused handwaves at Zarkon.

Alfor's gaze followed Coran's hands, and he was holding very still with the wheels in his head visibly turning.

He looked cautiously caught-out and thoughtful enough that Coran was somehow suckered into expecting a thought-out, rational response.

Alfor finally shrugged, answering with a tentative “Why not?” that sounded as if he was as unsure as anyone else on that one.

Coran stared at him, mouth open. Zarkon was to his side, staring off into space, distant and long-suffering.

"Well that's - it's not like I knew what I was getting into at first, there was some big thing going on Father was doing and I was _bored_ ," Alfor continued, as if trying to scrabble for some kind of defense. "And then after that...," he trailed off, suddenly more awkward. "Well, you know." He actually motioned to Coran on that one, and Zarkon looked between them, eyes narrowed in vague uncertain confusion.

It didn't click at first, but then Coran remembered Alfor talking about 'one other person' who 'got it' that he 'didn't get to see often', and realized that Alfor had probably meant Zarkon. 

Zarkon's attention settled back on Alfor. "'you know'?"

Alfor took a deep breath before he answered. "Well, you know. Neither of us really get anybody to talk to that relates to anything that often." 

Zarkon gave a half-hearted huff, looking away; Coran was pretty sure there was something he'd missed, but that it was probably not something to ask after right now.

“It’s not worth risking your life, never mind possibly giving _him_ ammunition against _your entire people_.” Zarkon looked back up somewhere in the comment with a sharp gesture off towards somewhere further into the Galra delegation’s area. 

Alfor just rolled his eyes. “I know how to dodge his security by now. I’ve been doing this for how long now?”

“And it’s a miracle you haven’t been caught before.” 

Coran wanted to be surprised that Alfor had apparently been at this for some time, but he’d seen too much of the sort of thing Alfor got into for that; of _course_ Alfor had been sneaking out to go visit the Galra prince despite hostilities. It was Alfor. 

“I’ll be fine. Really.”

Zarkon didn’t seem convinced by Alfor’s assurances, and gave Coran a sideways glance, as if checking Coran’s reaction.

Coran folded his arms. “One of these days, I’m going to have to rescue you because you snuck in somewhere you shouldn’t have or slept with someone you shouldn’t have, and I am never going to let you forget it.” 

Zarkon made another small huff noise as if bolstered by Coran being on his side; Alfor leaned back on his hands with a melodramatic sigh. 

“Look, it’s not like I don’t pay attention to things like security and all; Tila’s been keeping track of the guard drones around this area this whole time. I actually do know what I’m doing!”

There were two mirrored skeptical looks with folded arms.

“Really. Like that picnic going out looking at shrines?” Coran tapped a finger on his arm.

Alfor stumbled over his answer a couple times, with a few nervous glances at Zarkon. “Okay that was a little stupid, but you have to admit there wasn’t any way to predict it, and I _had_ planned for everything else.” 

Zarkon gave both of them a gauging look, but shook his head, not pursuing it. “What about the time you spent three hours running errands because someone spotted you and you tried to pass yourself off as a servant?” 

Alfor straightened up. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“And how did you explain being late to return to your own delegation there?” 

“I’d fallen asleep outside on one of the ledges near the ship,” Alfor said, with half-offended certainty.

Coran suspected the main reason the King hadn’t pressed Alfor harder on that one was being unsure he wanted to know.

“This is serious, Alfor. The Dantalion have been our close allies for some time now, and I think Father is changing his mind about it not being in our best interests to get involved in your war with them. If he catches you around here, he’ll have something he can press for accusations of espionage, and _you’ll_ be a political prisoner at best - and if he realizes you’ve been visiting _me_ , then I won’t escape unscathed either.” 

Alfor was sullenly stubborn, then flinched and wilted at the last part. “Alright, I’ll try to be careful, but-” He shrank, then was fumbling around some other thought. “I don’t want to just leave you isolated like this, either - Tila and I’ve been working on something so we can keep in touch, and as soon as we know we can get comm channels without them getting noticed, I’ll sneak in less, alright?”

Zarkon rumbled with a heaved sigh. “That will be easier on my nerves. In the meantime, if your partner here has noticed you’re missing, then it’s a matter of time before someone else does.” 

It was Coran’s turn to straighten, bolstered by the support, fixing Alfor with a sharp look.

“I know, I know.” Alfor shifted, glancing down at his collar. “Are we clear?”

“A few more ticks and yeah, we’ve got a good window to sneak back,” came the voice from inside his hood.

Alfor wilted. “Alright, Coran, let’s get going.” He paused as he got up, conflicted and less confident. “We’ll be in touch soon.” 

Zarkon looked down and away with a nod. 

Coran followed Alfor’s lead sneaking back out of the Galra areas; now that he wasn’t focused on trying to get to Alfor in case the prince was in trouble, his nerves were spiking hard at every little noise and shift in air, expecting some drone or guard to come around a corner and see them any minute. Alfor might’ve been able to blend in and pass off as a servant or something - Coran couldn’t shapeshift to pass himself off as Galra and would stick out badly. He could almost feel his pulse jumping right up until they’d gotten back into neutral areas, and even then there was the looming specter of anybody that might ask questions.

Questions like “why is the Altean prince trying to pass himself off as a Galra”. 

At some point in the netural areas, Alfor had ducked back behind him, letting him take the lead; he almost protested, but it might’ve drawn attention, and it wasn’t like they needed Tila in front to warn of security drones as much now. 

The diplomatic areas were dimly lit and quiet as they tried to slip back to the Altean rooms. Coran was in a hurry to get back, only pausing occasionally to check that Alfor was still with him and shoot the prince little frustrated looks. He could only hope nobody else was out skulking around - the last thing they needed was to give Trigel more ammunition.

He was looking back as he rounded a corner, and somehow managed to miss someone else hugging walls to avoid notice, whudding face-first into a wall of blue-white fine scales with his own awkward squawk met with another muffled noise of surprise.

He stumbled back into Alfor, who caught his shoulders from behind and kept him from going more off balance. Whoever he’d run into managed a little better, even if they did backpedal and freeze.

Coran stared up, blinking awkwardly. The Nalquodian he’d run into stared back, mouth half-open, also blinking awkwardly.

There was no good explanation for what they were doing that late, and Coran knew it, staring blankly in mute panic that they were about to get questioned. It took a beat to realize that Alfor was _hiding behind him_ \- which kind of figured since Alfor stood to be in, and cause, far more trouble getting caught than Coran did.

The Nalquodian glanced around, shifty and nervous, before straightening his loose vest, antennae ticking as he squinted at them as if trying to place faces. “…Prince Alfor, right?”

Alfor peered around Coran’s shoulder; his hood had fallen back in the scramble, making his hair, eyes, and markings more visible and destroying his illusion of Not Being Altean. “Blaytz, was it?”

Coran made a small, quiet whine of frustrated panic. Apparently there was someone ELSE at this conference dumb enough for this sort of shenanigans. 

Blaytz checked the halls again, giving Alfor’s shapeshift and clothes a brief, bewildered squint before shrugging it off. “You never saw me and I never saw you. Deal?”

Coran beat Alfor to the response. “Deal.” He wasn’t sure if Blaytz’s offer was recognition of Mutually Assured Destruction tier blackmail material or a moment of Idiot Solidarity, and he wasn’t sure if it mattered.

Either way, Blaytz accepted it with a nod and then darted past them, towards one of the hallway junctions they’d just passed through. 

The entrance back to the Altean delegation’s area was not far, and Coran realized there wasn’t anywhere else Blaytz could’ve been coming from - which left more questions than answers. 

Coran was mulling it over until they got back into their room, Alfor hurrying to get out of his Galra clothes. By the time Alfor was in his own normal nightclothes, Coran had concluded that it probably didn’t matter, besides that Blaytz at least had been fraternizing or flirting with a delegation _allied_ to his people; the worst he would face if he’d been caught would be some embarrassment, although the little bits Coran had caught about Zarkon’s situation and how concerned about it Alfor was made it harder to be too frustrated with the prince.

Coran fell over into his bed, curling up with the blankets and done with excitement for the night. Alfor had flopped back into his own bed, acting as if nothing had happened.

Sleep was slow coming; Alfor was awake and tinkering with something on his computer in his bed, while Coran was curled up trying to get there and not think about the possibility of some security camera somewhere having caught sight of them. The night wore on without anyone coming to accost or question them; Coran occasionally prodded around on his own computer, restlessly checking messages and circling updates, eventually falling asleep.

 

**06-26-3014.34**  
_There was some kind of delay on Altea; we’ve got one last day before Grandfather comes back with the Castle and the Queen to join the rest of the Altean delegation. Alfor’s seemed determined to not think about it, and nervous about changing the subject when it does come up. He hasn’t really talked about his family much in the time I’ve known him except occasional passing references, so I have no idea what’s going on, but I don’t really want to think about it either._

_I know he’s going to be asking about how things have been going on campus, and I’m going to be avoiding about three quarters of our routines and what we’ve been doing, nevermind that he’ll have more time to actually bring up what he thinks of Alfor and I getting along. I really don’t need him deciding I’ve ‘finally accepted the family duty’ or anything when it’s mostly just Alfor, not anything to do with rank._

_So far today Trigel’s settled down and, if anything, is mostly pointedly ignoring us. It’s hard to tell what’s going on, but the Rygnirathi she’s been hanging around seems relieved by it and to have relaxed, so maybe she’s given up on plotting our untimely demise. Zarkon’s doing about the same as he was before, being the least thrilled to be here of anyone; now that I’ve paid attention some, most of the few other Galra around his age seem to be avoiding him and his father, and the few that aren’t, he seems to be avoiding himself._

_Oh, and Blaytz is as full of shit as Alfor is - he struck up a conversation with Alfor and both of them were acting like they’d never met, but within a few doboshes it was clear that I was stuck with two of them. The King noticed and I’m not sure if he’s relieved Alfor’s distracted from poking people on the other side of the battle lines or uneasy somehow about it, and personally, I’m on the ‘uneasy’ side of it._

_The two of them had this bright idea to try and invite the younger family members and apprentices from all of the attending delegations to some kind of informal dinner. You could see both our King and the Nalquodian leadership getting suspicious, but nobody could come up with any actual objection or pin down ulterior motives, so they agreed to it, Ancestors save me. Zarkon politely declined after a narrow look from their King, but some of the other younger Galra agreed to it._

_And Trigel overheard and decided to attend._

_We’re all going to die._

 

The formal parts of the conference wound down out of anything the family members would have been expected to attend, and Coran was pulled along behind Alfor and Blaytz as they hastily bargained for a table at one of the restaurants on the edge of the compound the conference was in. He braced himself for the worst.

Nothing happened. 

Trigel was even calmly amiable, which should have been comforting, but instead it rang all kinds of alarms to Coran even if he had no idea what could be wrong or what she might be up to. As the dinner went on, Alfor talked a little faster and got a little more stiff whenever he talked to her, so Coran was sure he wasn’t the only one sensing a trap. 

Afterwards they had all gone their separate ways, returning to their respective quarters in the dimmed evening lights.

There was someone leaning against the door into the area set side for the Altean delegation, in the small common room just outside security. 

The Wayfinder commander looked up as the door closed behind them, standing to cross part of the room closer. 

“Prince Alfor Telsar Feldon Galbrook Valstaff Lamvaqil, and Coran Heironymous Wimbledon Smythe.” She went through their full names smoothly, deliberately, without any hesitation, stumbling, or moment’s pause for thought. “I’m glad I managed to catch the two of you away from other distractions.”

Alfor stiffened, and Coran edged behind him, then back a half-step out after a pang of guilt over using Alfor as a shield. Alfor didn’t even seem to notice, preoccupied with the Dantalion in front of them. “I’m afraid you have some advantage on us, Commander Falkir.” 

“You could definitely say that.” There was something about the unimpressed tone she took that set alarms ringing in Coran’s head. “Did you know that when our Wayfinders are in the field, their armor has recording equipment for sound, visuals, and documenting biosignature readings of potential threats that they’re required to have running whenever there’s a potential incident or potential for valuable intelligence?”

“I was not, no.” Alfor’s answer came slowly and cautiously; Coran winced in spite of himself, and he saw the commander’s eyes flicker back to him.

“My apprentice is particularly diligent about documenting altercations.” She gave Alfor a level stare. “So I would appreciate if you wouldn’t embarrass both of us by trying to continue playing stupid about your trespassing incident.”

At that, Alfor did flinch, with a quiet ‘erk’. 

“You’re lucky we had enough intel to piece some things together, like the Altean agents that went to investigate our sudden heightened security in that area - and that I know your father would not have been stupid enough to bring you here had he known you’d been the cause of an incident. My suspicion is youthful stupidity, but I find myself still lacking enough information to decide what to do.” She had come close enough to be leaning in, looming over Alfor with what little height advantage she had. 

“I realize it doesn’t mean much now, but it was not my intention to cause an altercation.” Alfor had gone stiff, trying very hard to keep a neutral expression. Coran edged behind him, even if that brought an internal conflict - he knew Alfor was more prepared than he was to deal with this, but he still couldn't help a pang of guilt for hiding behind Alfor at a time like this.

The commander's eyes narrowed. "You landed on a planet under our protection while our people are at open war. What, exactly, were you expecting?"

Alfor shrank in, ducking his head. "Well, I knew there weren't many serious patrols, I was expecting to land, look around, get back to our ship, and leave without drawing attention."

"Using an Unilu raiding skiff." She folded her arms, narrowing her eyes at him. "On that note, how did you even _get_ that ship?"

"Calling in a gambling debt for a favor." 

The commander stared at Alfor for a few long ticks, face a mix of irritation and disbelief that struck Coran as dangerous. "You expect me to believe that the _Crown Prince of Altea_ was gambling with pirates enough to call in a debt to _borrow a raiding skiff_?"

Alfor looked back at her, deadpan and level. "Do you really think I'd come up with something that ridiculous if I were trying to lie?"

She stared, although it was fading in to the kind of distant disbelief tinged with faint horror that Coran was getting used to seeing around Alfor. "You make a hobby of gambling with pirates."

"I get bored." 

She tilted her head, squinting at him. "How have you not been kidnapped for ransom?"

"Well, I've made good on my own payments and paid forward enough favors on some things that the ones who do realize who I am are willing to respect that I'm operating within their rules?" He paused. "And I've broken a few limbs on my way back from nights out when someone did get stupid."

"The Altean crown prince has a hobby of gambling with pirates." She reached up to rub her temples, eyes closed tight. "Moving on from that, _what were you even doing?_ What were you after?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I said we were just out for fresh air, would you." Alfor shifted his weight nervously.

She opened one eye, fixing him with a glare. "There's five different inhabited worlds closer to that station that are _not_ hostile territory." 

Alfor sighed. "I'd seen mention of the shrines having similar features to some of the temples on Altea, and I was curious about what might be similar or different. We're _scientists_ , even if I'm .... in a bit of a politically loaded sort-of position." He shrugged, with an exasperated motion that included him and Coran, still hiding behind him. "We were trying not to disturb anything or cause any offense, besides, well, going out there to look. And. Take readings." He shifted nervously on the last part.

The commander gave him another long, tired stare. "I would call that a blatant lie if my apprentice hadn't recorded you lot grabbing your equipment, and if the shrine's caretaker-priest hadn't said you'd been more respectful of the shrine than many of the legal travelers." 

“You have my sincerest apology for any disturbance we caused.” Alfor had a better shot at talking their way out of it, and the high commander _had_ just acknowledged their story checking out.

The high commander stared at Alfor, a silent pause that set Coran's nerves on edge. "I'm not pursuing your intrusion because I don't waste resources pursuing pointless stupidity when I have more important threats to address. Attempt anything like that again, and I may re-evaluate how much trouble you're worth." Her eyes narrowed. "I'm still considering confronting your father about your indiscretion." 

Coran didn't so much avoid reacting as freeze too badly to react, but he heard Alfor's faint squeak and there was a definite brief cringe from the prince that got a brief, viciously satisfied smirk from the Dantalion leader. 

"So this is the future of Altea. A spineless dilettante more interested in research than leadership, and a recluse hiding behind him." She shifted to lean to the side, peering around Alfor before returning her attention to the prince. "Do you even have the slightest idea how to manage a war?"

Alfor leaned to try to stay between her and Coran; it was a gesture Coran couldn't help but appreciate even as he felt another pang of guilt that Alfor had to play shield for him when Alfor was this much of a target to begin with. "To be perfectly honest, I'd rather find a way to resolve it with as little further pointless bloodshed as possible."

"Pointless. Really." She tilted her head. "And how, exactly, do you plan to go about addressing the dead on both sides to convince my people or yours that we should simply forget all of it?"

"Well, it's -" Alfor made a few weak hand gestures, stammering and already floundering. "I don't - really know, it just - doesn't seem like it's worth whatever started the fighting to begin with - there has to be something - it's not like either side is made up of pure evil or anything like that -"

The high commander shook her head, rolling her eyes. "You don't even know how the war started? You really are useless." She paused, shifting again to focus on Coran. "And I have to wonder if your companion here shares your opinions?"

Coran's stomach knotted and he could almost taste acid in the back of his throat. He almost forgot Alfor was there with attention drawn to the weblum in the room he'd been avoiding, even as he edged a little closer to the prince's back.

"The Galtar relay point, wasn't it? Altea still hasn't retaken that space, even if King Leander's reprisal was vicious... but I suppose personal nerves don't lend themselves to good tactics." 

He shrank back around Alfor's other side, trying to put Alfor back between him and the commander more solidly. His parents had left him behind on Altea whenever they were too close to areas with front lines or too many attack vectors and tactical value, it was the only reason he hadn't been on the station with them when it'd been destroyed. It'd been a long time since the attack and the day he'd decided he wanted nothing to do with his family "duty", the war, politics, or any of it, not when it meant that kind of destruction and loss. 

She wasn't letting him hide, edging to the side just enough to make it harder for him to hide behind Alfor without giving them a clear path to the door into the Altean delegation's area. "Well, Coran? Are you willing to follow Alfor on forgiving and forgetting your own family?" 

For a moment, he stared at her, mouth open, everything in his head wanting to scatter every which way; he wanted to bolt, but she was between them and the only safe exit they had.

With no escape route, the pressure snapped instead. "I don't want _any of this!_ " Coran dug his fingers into Alfor's cape, pulling Alfor in between them. "I don't want the war, I don't want politics, I don't want _anything to do with you_ , I just want to be _left alone_!"

Alfor half-stumbled, regaining his footing.

She shifted, clearly not ready to give up yet with blood in the water.

Instead of any kind of protest at Coran suddenly shoving Alfor in the way, Alfor straightened, putting an arm out to block the side she'd been looming around, and it took a tick to register that Alfor didn't just seem slightly taller, he actually had gotten slightly taller. "That's enough!" He was bristling, voice a stern snap of a tone Coran had never heard him use. "I don't know what you're trying to do here, but this is a _peace conference_ , not an excuse for you to terrorize us!"

The high commander took a half-step back, looking Alfor over with a different kind of thoughtful consideration. "So you are your father's son after all." 

Coran didn't really want to peer around to get a better look at the staredown; it was surreal enough having Alfor suddenly being a solid shelter that actually felt like he _would_ be willing and able to do something if the situation got worse. 

"You got your answers from me. Is there _anything else_ for you to be doing here, or are we going to go around you back to our rooms?" There was an odd trill from Alfor trailing off, and it took a moment for Coran to place it as similar to the noise Trigel had made when she'd first realized they were the same ones from the Incident - a gesture that wasn't lost on the High Commander, either, going by the brief flicker of cautious bemusement that crossed her face. 

"Yes, I did get my answers, and I believe I have accomplished everything I came here for." She stepped back, not quite stepping aside yet. "And I suppose that I should repay your honesty in kind, Prince Alfor." There were teeth points as she spoke, even if her demeanor had shifted; Coran wasn't sure that her turning more respectful was a good thing. "Your father is getting older. One of you children here today will be taking his place, and the rest will still be leaders among your people. I wanted the measure of what we will be dealing with." 

Even less sure it was a good thing.

"One way or another, we will be seeing each other again." She raised a hand in a half-bow, then stepped around them, giving a decent bubble of space as she headed for the door; Alfor moved to stay between her and Coran until she was gone.

A few ticks drug past after the doors closed, then Alfor let out a breath and went back to his normal height with a faint whine, wilting at the shoulders; even with that, he was fast to turn back to Coran. "Are you alright?"

Coran tried to muster some kind of answer, but all he managed was a bit of cracked, nervous laughter and a headshake. 

Alfor gave that a lopsided, broken attempt at a grin. "Let's just get back to our room before anything _else_ happens." 

They hurried in, Tila clambering out of Alfor's pocket to return to the main drone while Alfor shed his good clothes to huddle in blankets; Coran paced the room, nerves too tight to follow suit even if it did look tempting. 

It was a huge mess where Coran wasn't even sure where to start on unraveling it; even with Alfor he wasn't managing to escape the worst parts of what he'd been avoiding, and he was both tempted to see how Alfor felt about the whole 'running away to be space pirates with the Unilu' idea and finding it hard to convince himself they wouldn't just get tracked down and recognized there if they tried. 

And Alfor had very nearly gotten into a fight with the Dantalion High Commander of the Wayfinders on his behalf, after weathering her chewing on him verbally without any sign of being willing to argue for himself.

Alfor's blanket-wad was shifting occasionally as the prince fidgeted in it. "Sorry. I mean, I know there wasn't much that I could do, and I've been - bad at paying attention to some things - I did know about your family, I just didn't really want to bring it up and wasn't sure what to say, I didn't mean it wasn't important when I was talking about the war, just -"

"It's _fine._ " 

Alfor flinched, and Coran winced; he hadn't meant to snap it like that. 

"No it's - it wasn't _you_ , I." Coran went another few paces, waving his hands trying to catch the words. "You're _right_ , the whole thing is pointless and stupid, and I _don't_ want revenge, I just want it all to go away and _stop_ so that there's just. Not anything like that anymore." He wilted, wrapping his arms around himself and leaning on the end of his bed. 

Alfor nodded distantly, huddling closer into his blankets. 

"And. Thank you. For getting in the way there. It's - you didn't have to do that."

"Yes I did." Alfor was hunched in the pile. "I couldn't just do nothing while she was picking on you like that."

Coran slid up onto the edge of his bed; the room was silent for a while. 

"So this is what we've got to look forward to," Coran finally said. 

Alfor had his own bit of nervous, broken laughter. "Right. As if I'm even going to pass the Ordeal." 

Something that'd been nagging at Coran for a long time stuck, catching somewhere like a half-swallowed bone. "How can you be so sure of that?" There was a bunch of little things sticking together and Coran didn't know which one to grab onto first; as much trouble as Alfor had gotten him into, as much as he dreaded the way the commander had left, he didn't think she'd left with the impression Alfor was out of the running. 

Alfor started to answer, wrinkled his nose, and gave Coran a sideways look. "I thought you didn't want to be around the throne?"

"Well." He scrunched his face, folding up on the edge of the bed with his knees pulled up and his heels barely on the bed. "I don't know. I don't know what I want anymore. I don't know if getting away would _work_. I just... I don't know, maybe we'd all be better off with someone like you who's trying to _stop_ this instead of someone who'd just be angry and keeping it going." 

Alfor shrank. "...Coran, you know me. She didn't even know half of what I get into or how much I haven't been doing _anything_ to learn what I'm supposed to. The ancestors and everything else will probably take one look inside my head and declare me unfit to be responsible for more than a pet halput." 

There was a brief set of sharp beeps from the shelf, and a distinctly offended flicker of lights from Tila's chassis. "So what am I then?" 

Alfor flinched. "You know I didn't mean you, I mean-" He shed part of the blankets trying to gesture. "I _know_ I'm the joke of the royalty, do you really think the ancestors would let me anywhere near authority? I'm kind of useless most of the time."

Coran groaned, and Tila had a small low-register chirp of her own. "You just stared down the _Wayfinder High Commander._ "

Alfor did sit up, but only to lean back incredulously. "Because she was picking on you! And I wasn't even thinking when I did it! If she'd called my bluff she would've slaughtered me!" 

"Did you see the way she was looking at you when she left?!" Coran waved at the door, slipping back off the bed to his feet. 

"Yes, and I'm honestly terrified of it." 

"Alfor, you - I -" Coran gave an incoherent snarling groan, burying his face in his hands. "Look, _you_ might be able to pull off the space pirate gig, but I'd get eaten alive - I _don't_ have anywhere else to go where I'd have a clue what I was doing, and this would all just follow me anyway and we both know it!" 

Alfor ducked his head, looking away. "I'd help, until you figured it out." 

Coran gestured at Alfor, hands open, frustrated. "That's the point! You actually _care_ about all of this, and people like me and Havhi and Zarkon that're just stuck in it and don't want to be!" 

Alfor shrugged with a conflicted noise. "Doesn't mean I have a clue what to do about it." 

Coran fixed Alfor with his best level, flat stare. "Alfor, if there's anyone who'd 'just think of something', it'd be you."

"There's a pretty big difference between what we've been getting into and stopping a war." 

"Well, it's not going to go away if we run away from it, either; you've heard Havhi talk about how her people are getting caught in it." Coran folded his arms, squaring his shoulders. 

Alfor winced. "I thought you were trying to get away from all the pressure to be 'responsible'."

"Well, if we can't make it stop chewing on our ankles, we may as well find some way to beat it with a stick." Coran was sure the mechanical engineering instructor wouldn't have been as much of a scourge if they hadn't been working with the Crown Prince, most of the reason the altercation with Trigel was an issue was their rank and heritage, and it wasn't unknown to the people they dealt with on campus, even if it was less important. 

And Alfor was probably right that the High Commander had been drawing a target on both of them when she left like that. Coran remembered enough of his Grandfather's stories to know that wasn't something they were going to slip so easily, and the only thing he was more terrified of than not being able to get away was being stuck helpless to do anything about whatever might happen. He didn't want to get caught blind and out of options. 

"Are you serious about that?"

"Do you think she's going to let us just run away?" He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "They've noticed us, we bolt and they'll hunt us to the ends of the universe." 

“That doesn’t mean I have a clue what I’d be doing in charge.”

Coran huffed, hunching his shoulders. “Well, whatever you end up doing, you’d better not leave me out of it.” 

“You know after I finish my terms at the university I’m supposed to spend time in the military, right?” Alfor at least seemed to have relaxed a little from the tight wad he’d been in before. “That’s not staying away from the war.”

“I’ll manage. Maybe wipe that smirk off the High Commander’s face before you figure out a way to get them to lay off.” Maybe there was a little bit of a vengeful streak in there after all, now that she’d been baiting them and pushing it. “Besides, someone has to make sure you don’t get yourself killed doing something stupid, and Tila can only do so much by herself.” 

“It _would_ help to have an organic set of hands around,” the AI added. 

Alfor sank back against the wall with the blanket. “Coran… thank you.”

He might not be sure how to get Alfor to figure out that he was more capable than he was giving himself credit for, but he’d figure it out sooner or later. Until then, he’d at least find some way to pay back all the times Alfor had been looking out for him and willing to stand up for him.

And Alfor was already starting to drift away from the serious topics, a scheming glint in his eyes. “So in the meantime… when we get back to campus…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I actually do have other things to continue off of this one! They'll be other fics with less time specific ties as I get pieces finished. The delay on cleaning up and posting the final chapter was basically life situation - I moved into a new apartment and had a bit of a job mess, so I didn't get much done for a few weeks at all. 
> 
> (For some clarity, this fic is about half of what the original outline turned into.)

**Author's Note:**

> Overall title is a Monty Python reference, to the Galaxy Song from Life of Brian. ("So pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'cuz there's bugger-all down here on Earth!")


End file.
